Mond process

The Mond Process is a technique created by Ludwig Mond in 1899 to extract and purify nickel. It is done by converting nickel oxides (nickel combined with oxygen) into pure nickel.

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This process makes use of the fact that carbon monoxide complexes with nickel readily and reversibly to give nickel carbonyl.^[1] No other element forms a carbonyl compound under the mild conditions used in the process.

This process has three steps:

1. Nickel oxide is reacted with Syngas at 200 °C to remove oxygen, leaving impure nickel. Impurities include iron and cobalt.

NiO (s) + H₂ (g) → Ni (s) + H₂O (g)

2. The impure nickel is reacted with excess carbon monoxide at 50 - 60 °C to form nickel carbonyl.

Ni (s) + 4 CO (g) → Ni(CO)₄ (g)

3. The mixture of excess carbon monoxide and nickel carbonyl is heated to 220 - 250 °C. On heating, tetracarbonyl nickel decomposes to give nickel:

Ni(CO)₄ (g) → Ni (s) + 4 CO (g)

The decomposition may be engineered to produce powder, but more commonly an existing substrate is coated with nickel. For example, nickel pellets are made by dropping small, hot pellets through the carbonyl gas; this deposits a layer of nickel onto the pellets.

Some safety data

TWA – time weighted average (limit) STEL – short-term exposure limit

References

1. ^ Mond L, Langer K, Quincke F (1890). "Action of carbon monoxide on nickel". Journal of the Chemical Society: 749-753. DOI

• Webelements.
• Liptrot GF (1983) Modern Inorganic Chemistry 4th ed p386 Unwin Hyman
• Pauling, L (1964) College chemistry 3rd ed p658 Freeman
• Rawcliffe, CT & Rawson, DH (1974) Principles of inorganic and theoretical chemistry 2nd ed p409 Heinemann
• [1]
• "Nickel Chemistry" from the University of the West Indies (Mona)