Utilization of the nickel hydroxide derived from a spent electroless nickel plating bath for energy storage applications

In this study, a simple one-step approach has been proposed to treat a spent electroless nickel plating bath by precipitating nickel metal as nickel hydroxide. Beta phase nickel hydroxide beta-Ni(OH)2 generated after the treatment of an electroless nickel plating bath was characterized by material characterization techniques including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), FT-IR and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The electrochemical performance of beta-Ni(OH)2 was evaluated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and galvanostatic charge-discharge (GCD) techniques. A specific capacitance of 332 F g-1@5 mV s-1 is obtained from the CV data with an energy density of 11.5 W h kg-1 and power density of 207.5 W kg-1. The GCD results show a specific capacitance of 330 F g-1, which is in close agreement with the value obtained from the CV data. This work represents a scalable approach for the synthesis of beta-Ni(OH)2 from plating waste and converting it into a value-added product. The beta-Ni(OH)2 powder obtained from plating waste has comparable electrochemical properties to that of pristine beta-Ni(OH)2 and other transition metal hydroxides produced by other chemical methods. Nickel hydroxide obtained from spent electroless nickel plating bath and its energy storage application.