Rhodanide - 7-3-2018 at 06:39
In my quest to make all the Oxalates that I can, Cadmium is next!
Is it correct that NiCd batteries contain a perforated foil of pure Cd metal, or is it a salt? Also, how would I turn the metal into a salt, if it is
in metallic form? What acid works best? One last thing - anything I should know about Cd besides its toxicity before I go to work with it?
ninhydric1 - 7-3-2018 at 08:50
Magpie made a (successful, sorry Magpie) attempt at extracting Cd from batteries in the following thread:
http://www.sciencemadness.org/talk/viewthread.php?tid=4676
[Edited on 3-7-2018 by ninhydric1]
Magpie - 7-3-2018 at 09:51
What do you mean “attempt”? I did it.
elementcollector1 - 7-3-2018 at 13:15
I've done it as well. The cadmium inside is a gray, slightly clumpy powder pasted onto a steel support mesh, and needs to be scraped off vigorously
with a screwdriver. I'm not sure how pure it actually is, but dissolving it in an acid and plating it out again at very low voltage (to avoid iron
plating, etc.) would probably give a reasonably pure metal product.
Personally, I used H2SO4 and got about the same color as Magpie's cadmium nitrate. I don't quite recall how it behaves in HCl, but I've no reason to
suspect any of the three main acids are any better or worse than the others in this case.
j_sum1 - 7-3-2018 at 14:36
This is on my list -- I have an old nicad drill battery that no longer holds charge that I picked up from somewhere. I have not yet looked up how
these are constructed or what steps would need to be taken to extract the Cd from it in its current state.
I'll take a look at the thread you linked, ninhydric.