Feed preparation
Nickel-bearing materials are conditioned for gas-solid reaction, supporting sulfides, oxides, black mass, and metal scrap streams.
Technology platform
Vapometallurgical refining for clean nickel production
Vapometallurgy combines closed-loop carbonyl chemistry with reactor engineering to recover battery-grade nickel from diverse primary and recycled feedstocks.
Selective carbonylation
Controlled carbon monoxide chemistry forms volatile metal carbonyls, enabling targeted separation without acid leaching or liquid effluent.
Clean decomposition
Thermal decomposition yields high-purity nickel products while process gases are recovered for closed-loop operation.
Research focus
From fundamental chemistry to scalable reactors
The program connects carbonyl chemistry with practical reactor design, targeting flexible feedstocks, cleaner flowsheets, and high-purity nickel products.
Feedstock flexibility
Treats sulfide ores, oxide ores, recycled battery black mass, and nickel-containing metal scrap to support both primary mining and circular economy pathways.
Lower-impact processing
Explores closed-loop carbonyl refining with no acid consumption, no liquid effluents, and relatively low energy requirements.
Specialty nickel products
Develops pathways for high-value nickel powders, foams, and specialty materials beyond conventional refining outputs.
Scalable reactors
Designs and tests bench-scale reactors, novel heating concepts, gas-phase delivery methods, and geometries suited to industrial deployment.
People
Research team
Eric Croiset
Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
Komal Habib
Associate Professor & MEB Academic Director
School of Environment, Enterprise and Development
Vlad Paserin
Research Associate
Department of Chemical Engineering
Vahid Barahimi
PhD Candidate
Department of Chemical Engineering
Ben Stan
MASc Student
Department of Chemical Engineering
Publications
Latest work
4 publications
Revisiting the Mond Process: The Greenest Approach to Battery-Grade Nickel, Iron, and Cobalt?
Vladimir Paserin, Vahid Barahimi, Param Dave, Alex Cimprich, Eric Croiset, Steven Young
Conference of Metallurgists (COM 2024), 1483-1486, 2024.
View publicationReduction/Carbonylation Flowsheet for the Extraction of Critical Metals from Mixed Hydroxide Precipitate (MHP)
Dmitri S. Terekhov, Colwyn S. van der Linde, Rodney P. Reynolds, Vahid Barahimi, Param Dave, Vladimir Paserin, Eric Croiset
Critical Minerals '24
Open PDFDevelopment of a High-Pressure TGA-Based Vapometallurgical Reactor for Critical Metals Extraction: Focus on Ni, Fe, Co
Param Dave, Vahid Barahimi, Vladimir Paserin, Eric Croiset
Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference (CSChE 2024), 2024
Development of a High-Pressure TGA-Based Vapometallurgical Reactor for Critical Metals Extraction: Focus on Ni, Fe, Co
Vahid Barahimi, Param Dave, Vladimir Paserin, Eric Croiset
Canadian Chemical Engineering Conference (CSChE 2025), 2025
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Contact
Start a conversation
For collaboration, research, or industry inquiries, contact the Vapometallurgy research team.
Email: vbarahim@uwaterloo.ca