Abstract
The reduction roasting ammonia leaching process (RRAL) originally defined by Caron (1950) has been extensively applied to treat low grade nickel laterite and a large amount of slag-containing some valuable metals, has been generated and accumulated over the years since then. However, there are no reports on how to utilize it based on its essential properties. In this investigation, the textural and mineralogical characterization of the typical nickel slag from RRAL in Western Australia was performed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). The results show that the nickel slag is dominated by magnetite, maghemite, gangue minerals and minor Cr-spinel. The magnetite and maghemite possess simple distribution relationship with other minerals and their particles are highly variable with most over 50 μm, which are easily able to be recovered. In term of the complex association and distribution feature of chromium and nickel minerals, it is very difficult to recovery them. Meanwhile, an economically viable extraction process was proposed to preliminarily utilize the nickel slag based on textural and mineralogical characteristics of the slag, and the magnetic concentrate, assaying about 62% iron grade at over 75% recovery rate, was obtained through the recommended method.
Highlights
Nickel laterite is an important nickel oxide ore, which accounts for about 60–70% of the world’s land-based nickel reserves [1,2,3]
The typical nickel slag rejected from reduction-ammonia leaching process (RRAL) in Western
Australia was subjected to detailed petrographic and mineralogical investigations to examine the textures of potential minerals
Summary
Nickel laterite is an important nickel oxide ore, which accounts for about 60–70% of the world’s land-based nickel reserves [1,2,3]. The nickel laterite is very difficult to treat due to its low-grade and complex mineralogy These provided much impetus to develop mature technologies to recover nickel from laterite ores. Therein, reduction roasting-ammonia leaching (RRAL) is one of mature technologies to process the limonitic laterite and has been extensively used in industrial applications for decades [9,10,11,12]. Until now, this process is commercially used in several countries, including Cuba, Australia and Philippines [9].
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