Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Nickel coins as a source of pure nickel

PirateDocBrown - 22-6-2022 at 14:09

This arose from a conversation about someone wishing to extract nickel from stainless steel flatware, or alternatively, US "nickels", i.e. 5 cent coins, which are only 25% nickel.

Several countries issued coins of pure nickel, and these can be used directly.

Netherlands,
10, 25 cent, 1948-2001
1, 2 1/2 guilder, 1967-2001

France,
1/2 franc, 1965-2001
1 franc, 1960-2001
2 franc, 1979-2001

Canada,
5 cent, 1955-1981
10 cent, 1969-1999
25 cent, 1968-1999

I'm sure there were many others, but these are common ones available to me.

[Edited on 6/22/22 by PirateDocBrown]

BromicAcid - 22-6-2022 at 15:55

Back in 2017 during the great nickel spike I bought pounds and pounds and pounds of the old Canadian nickels. Just had to move them to my new house. They travel well.

woelen - 22-6-2022 at 22:47

When the euro came in the Netherlands, I kept a pound or so of 10 cent and 25 cent coins. These coins give most nickel for their price. One 10 cent coin is 1.50 grams of nickel and one 25 cent coin is 3.00 grams of nickel. In euros, this means a little over 3 eurocents per gram of pure nickel. The nickel is over 99.5%, the remainder being mainly tin and having only traces of other metals. Very useful!

PirateDocBrown - 23-6-2022 at 00:32

I travelled to France a bunch back in the 80s (and some to NL as well), and have a few dozen each of 1/2 and 1 franc coins. Being near the Canadian border, and that Canadian coins are very similar to US ones, we get a bit of them in circulation. So a few of those as well.

Fantasma4500 - 24-6-2022 at 05:11

if anyone needs nickel hit me up, got .. 3-5kg of pure nickel used for electroplating, its about 5mm thick "coins" welded together 4x5 with the size of about 120x120mm
theyre apparently called "s-rounds"

flaminglasrswrd - 24-6-2022 at 14:13

Nickels electrolyze easily in a sulfuric acid bath. I used this method to collect some nickel for catalysts back in 2018.

I used a "basket" made from copper wire to support a stack of nickels while they dissolved away.

Nickel carbonate is sold as a ceramic colorant. It's cheap and less toxic to work with.

What are you planning to do with it once you have it?