The Mond Process is a technique created by Ludwig Mond in 1899 to extract and purify nickel. It is done by converting nickel oxides (nickel combined with oxygen) into pure nickel.

This process makes use of the fact that carbon monoxide complexes with nickel readily to give nickel carbonyl. Also, nickel carbonyl, decomposes easily to form nickel.

This process has three steps:

1. Nickel oxides are reacted with Water gas at 50 °C to remove oxides, leaving impure nickel.
2. The impure nickel is reacted with excess carbon monoxide to form nickel carbonyl
3. The mixture of excess carbon monoxide and nickel carbonyl is heated. On heating, tetracarbonyl nickel decomposes to give nickel:

Ni + 4CO → Ni(CO)₄ → Ni + 4CO

External links

• "Nickel Chemistry" from the University of the West Indies (Mona)

Chemistry