2004 Volume 72 Issue 11 Pages 734-736
Conventionally, nickel oxyhydroxide as a cathode active material for the primary batteries has been prepared by a chemical synthetic method using a hypochlorite salt as an oxidant. However, a large amount of waste effluent generates because chemical oxidation process is operated using a batch container, therefore a new synthetic method is requested. We developed a new electrolytic synthetic method eliminating the waste problem. When a KCl solution suspended with Ni(OH)2 powders is electrolyzed under the alkaline region, chlorine gas is generated at the anode and immediately changed into ClO-. The suspended Ni(OH)2 powders in the KCl solution are oxidized into β-NiOOH by the produced hypochlorite ions. The discharge capacity of obtained nickel oxyhydroxide is 189 mAh/g and the value is 20-30% greater than that of the NiOOH obtained by the conventional chemical oxidation method. Moreover, electrolyte containing KCl can be repeatedly utilized as an oxidizing media since only trace amounts of nickel ions are remained in the electrolytic bath.
