Design of nickel cathode sampling in the manufacture of nickel by the Outokumpu process

Abstract

Industrial cathodes have the potential of being extremely nonuniform in impurity content. Obtaining a representative sample is essential in evaluating specifications compliance in industrial cathodes which determine its quality. Knowledge about impurity distribution in nickel cathode is scanty. Again there seems to be no literature regarding proper sampling design on nickel cathode. The thrust of this project was to carry out profile tests on impurity distribution and then design an appropriate sampling method for nickel cathode, using statistical analysis. It was observed that there is no pattern in which the impurities are distributed within the cathode. Random sampling was found to be the best method for sampling nickel cathodes.