I am planning to create a solution of nickel (II) acetate to use for electroplating. From my research, I found that peracetic acid (which I am using to make copper (II) acetate by placing copper wire into the acid) also dissolves nickel. I am wondering if this will work with nickel, or if I will need to change the procedure.
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$\begingroup$ Nickel acetate is available from chemical suppliers such as Sigma-Aldrich, so consider that option. $\endgroup$– Oscar LanziMay 11 at 0:17
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2 Answers
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Nickel metal is much more resistant to corrosion than copper metal; a solution of acetic acid and hydrogen peroxide that dissolves copper will not necessarily dissolve nickel metal. If you have access to rather concentrated acetic acid (as in >60%) paired with hydrogen peroxide, I say try it, but if only have 5-15% stuff (which works for copper) you will most likely have to find a new way to dissolve the nickel. The author of this page says hydrochloric acid (unspecified concentration, but I assume it is relatively high) with hydrogen peroxide works, and other sources seem to say that sulfuric acid and nitric acid can also be used. All the sources I found recommended adding hydrogen peroxide when creating the desired nickel solution.
So, to answer your question, yes, you can probably dissolve nickel metal with peracetic acid, but it will have to be of a high concentration. Peracetic acid is dangerous at high concentrations, however, so I cannot recommend this as I do not have direct lab experience with it. With that said, I cannot even recommend any of the alternatives, as these all involve acids that are toxic and would have to be procured in high concentrations (HCl, HNO3, H2SO4, and the like). In any case, if you have prepared your peracetic acid solution with only copper metal in mind, it is likely that it will not be sufficiently strong to dissolve nickel metal as well.
This is beyond your question, but if I were you, I would purchase nickel salts (nickel chloride is my recommendation) online and use these for your electroplating. If you go down this route, keep in mind that inhaling nickel salts is a real health concern and a mask/ventilation apparatuses should be used when handling such powders. Hope this helps.
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August J Sasaki observes that copper metal is more easily soluble in peracetic acid than nickel metal despite nickel being thermodynamically higher in the EMF series. Here we look into how that could have been predicted.
We don't need much thermodynamic power. A common mineral acid such as hydrochloric acid may require a metal with good reducing power to react, but peacetime acid with 8ts peroxide function does not need all that. Kinetic factors dominate, so we look at a significant kinetic factor.
Nickel atoms are more tightly bound. Nickel is both harder and higher-melting (1455°C versus 1085°C, from the respective Wikipedia articles on these elements). Higher hardness and melting point implies more activation energy to dissolve the metal, even where the thermodynamics is favorable.
Thus the properties of nickel as a metal imply that it would be more difficult to dissolve kinetically than copper despite the latter being more noble. We should expect to have to modify the d8ssolution procedure accordingly, as described in August's answer
