I'm going to try and make some cobalt metal from cobalt chloride (which is sold at a local school supply company). I see 2 ways of doing it: single
displacement and thermite. I found a video where someone reacted aluminium and cobalt metal to form a powder(not sure if it would actually work or
not), although since honestly I don't want powders, it is going to be hard to melt. As for thermite cobalt chloride can be turned into the
oxide(cobalt(III) oxide) quite easily but since Co2O3 is apparently an oxidizer, the reaction might be too violent.AvBaeyer - 28-7-2017 at 19:18
Over 50 years ago in the basement I made some basic cobalt carbonate (cobalt chloride + sodium carbonate), dried it well, mixed it with powdered
charcoal and heated the living daylights out of the mixture in a crucible using a Fisher burner. After cooling I crushed up the residue and extracted
the metallic cobalt with a magnet as cobalt is magnetic. I recall that cobalt was the bulk of the residue.
AvBclearly_not_atara - 28-7-2017 at 19:54
I think you can dissolve it in methanol and reduce it with zinc, which is very available if you're willing to commit the minor crime of defacing
pennies. But that's just an educated guess pretty much.DraconicAcid - 28-7-2017 at 21:15
I think you can dissolve it in methanol and reduce it with zinc, which is very available if you're willing to commit the minor crime of defacing
pennies. But that's just an educated guess pretty much.
I suspect aluminum will work better than zinc......as another educated guess.Foeskes - 28-7-2017 at 22:02
Zinc metal is cheaply available I think it costs around 3-4 dollars for a pack of strips.
Although I would prefer nuggets of cobalt.violet sin - 29-7-2017 at 00:17
Well, by that logic, aluminum is free(practically everywhere), comes in shapes other than strips and quite possibly works better(see DraconicAcid's
comment above).
Why not try to plate it out of sol? Nice low mA at appropriate voltage could make for nice dense formation. Try a touch of sulfamic acid to see if
that rounds it out more. From some of my previous reading chloride baths usually make for high strain deposits.
Right away, nope... "Cobalt plated out of a sulfamate bath is brittle and pitted, even with typical surface tension agents" https://www.finishing.com/204/83.shtml love that site, lots of good stuff. But in some other parts of the link, high chloride, sulfate bathes
do ok for Co. So you may be in luck with your starting material.Foeskes - 29-7-2017 at 15:33
