A process for the production of electrolytic nickel from ferronickel
- PDF / 811,727 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 569 x 813.28 pts Page_size
- 89 Downloads / 276 Views
LARGE
q u a n t i t i e s of e l e c t r o l y t i c nickel a r e produced from sulfide o r e s . The e x t r a c t i o n of nickel from s u l fide o r e s c o n s i s t s of a s e r i e s of b e n e f i c i a t i n g and pyr o m e t a l l u r g i c a l o p e r a t i o n s leading to the s e p a r a t i o n of the sulfide (Ni3S2) c u r r e n t l y c h a r a c t e r i z e d as enr i c h e d matte. The m a t t e is cast into anodes which a r e e l e c t r o l y t i c a l l y d i s s o c i a t e d as in Inco's e l e c t r o l y t i c r e f i n e r y at Thompson, Manitoba t-3 In another method, nickel sulfide (Ni3S2) is r o a s t e d to oxide (NiO), reduced to m e t a l , cast into anodes and e l e c t r o r e f i n e d , as in the Port Colborne, Ontario, r e f i n e r y , t'2 In c o n t r a s t to the production of nickel from sulfide o r e s , no e l e c t r o l y t i c nickel is produced p r e s e n t l y from oxide o r e s . Almost all the p y r o m e t a l l u r g i c a l p r o c e s s e s applied to nickel oxide o r e s e x t r a c t the m e t a l in the f o r m of a t e r n a r y i r o n - n i c k e l - c o b a l t alloy. This is the case of the p r o c e s s e s : PERRIN (Hanna's Oregon s m e l t e r ) , ELKEM (Le N i c k e l ' s Doniambo s m e l t e r ) , L.M. ( L a r c o ' s L a r y m n a s m e l t e r ) , FALCONBRIDGE (Dominican s m e l t e r ) . F e r r o n i c k e l contains, as a r u l e , 25 to 50 pct Ni and 1 to 2 pct Co and is used p r i m a r i l y in the production of s t a i n l e s s steel. The steel i n d u s t r y c o n s u m e s about 40 pct of the total nickel output m o s t l y in the form of f e r r o n i c k e l . l F e r r o n i c k e l cannot be used by other s i g n i f i c a n t s e c t o r s of nickel consumption, such as in h i g h - g r a d e a l loys, in n i c k e l - p l a t i n g , and so forth, where e l e c t r o lyric nickel p r e v a i l s . Under these conditions, the m a r k e t for nickel extracted from l a t e r i t i c ores is significantly r e s t r i c t e d . This r e s t r i c t i o n is of special i m p o r t a n c e in view of the fact that these ores will be the m a i n s o u r c e of nickel in the near future. T h e r e f o r e , the development of a p r o c e s s for the p r o duction of e l e c t r o l y t i c nickel from f e r r o n i c k e l has a s t r o n g economic incentive. Such a p r o c e s s will e n l a r g e the m a r k e t for l a t e r i t i c nickel and i m p r o v e its p r o f i t ability s i n c e cobalt is r e c o v e r e d b y - p r o d u c t , and the e l e c t r o l y t i c nickel is sold at a p r e m i u m . The United States Bureau of Mines has studied in the past 4-~ the production of high purity nickel and cobalt from f e r r o nickel. A p r o c e s s for the production of e l e c t r o l y t i c nickel L. MOUSSOULOSis Professor of Extractive Metallurgy,at the National Technical Universityof Athens, Greece. Manuscript submitted April 16, 1975. METALLURGICALTRANSACTIONS B
from ferronickel is described in this paper. The process was deve
Data Loading...
