Treatment and recovery of nickel rich precipitate from plating plant waste

Abstract Nowadays, with the environmental regulations becoming more and more stringent and growing pressure on the conservation of mineral resources, recycling has been gaining interest to develop economically‐viable refining technology. As the costs of the wastewater disposal increase (especially in the metal finishing industry) more emphasis is being placed on the recovery and recycling of valuable chemicals contained within these streams. In this study, a commercial plating plant filter waste (PPFW) was examined as an alternative source for the recovery of Ni as a nickel rich precipitate. The treatment tests performed by H2SO4 leaching method showed that dissolution amounts of metals such as Ni, Cu, Zn and Cr were affected by leaching time, temperature and acid concentration. Although the dissolution of metallic compounds almost was completed within the one hour of the extraction time, a rapid and higher dissolution amounts of Ni within the first minute of the leaching process (approximately 81% of the...