“Uralmekhanobr” JSC, Yekaterinburg, Russia

A. M. Klyushnikov, Engineer, e-mail: kl-anton-mih@yandex.ru
V. V. Musaev, Chief Specialist of the Concentration Department
S. L. Orlov, Head of the Concentration Department

The Institute of Mining, Ural Department of Russian Academy of Sciences, Yekaterinburg, Russia

A. B. Umanskiy, Junior Researcher

A method for treating laterite ores for nickel recovery was developed utilizing a combination of sulfuric acid leaching, sorption and chemical precipitation as an alternative to conventional pyrometallurgical processing. Pyrometallurgy is becoming less acceptable from economical standpoints for the treatment of low grade laterite ores. Additionally, high capital costs make modern facilities cost prohibitive for the treatment of such poor ores. Results of previous researchers indicated that sulfuric acid leaching is an efficient and cost effective method of treating poor laterite ores. We proposed that leach acidic liquors that contained 1.0–1.5 g/l of nickel can be processed in a following way. The solution had been initially neutralized and nickel was concentrated in solution by means of sorption from hydroxide slurry using amino carboxylic ion exchange resins. Then it was stripped from loaded resin to obtain a strip solution containing about 30 kg/m³ of nickel. Nickel hydroxide was precipitated from this solution that resulted in about 96–98% of nickel extraction from leach solution to the concentrate. After nickel extraction the slurry was further neutralized and purified from impurities of magnesium by filtration that made possible to recycle technological solution. Based on these results a flowsheet was proposed for the treatment of solutions obtained by sulfuric acid leaching of laterite ores from Ural. The research work presented in this paper determined the optimum conditions at which nickel could be obtained at maximum efficiency from the leach liquor according to this flowsheet. As a result concentrate was obtained that contained 35–43% of nickel. This product can be successfully subjected to the subsequent metallurgical processing in a traditional way.

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