Recovery of nickel and cobalt as MHP from limonitic ore leaching solution: Kinetics analysis and precipitate characterization

Abstract

In the present study, precipitation of nickel and cobalt as mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) from pregnant leach solution of nickel limonite ore from Soroako after iron removal stage was carried out. A series of MHP precipitation experiments was conducted by using MgO slurry as neutralizing agent and the effects of pH, temperature, duration of precipitation and the addition of MHP seed on the precipitation behavior of nickel, cobalt, as well as iron and manganese was studied. Characterization of MHP product was performed by particle size analyzer (PSA) as well as X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) analyses. Kinetics analysis was made by using differential-integral method for the rate of homogenous reaction. Precipitation at pH 7, temperature 50°C for 30 minute, without seed addition resulted in nickel and cobalt recoveries of 82.8% and 92%, respectively with co-precipitated iron and manganese of 70% and 24.2%, respectively. The seed addition increases nickel and cobalt precipitations significantly to 99.9% and 99.1%, respectively. However, the addition of seed into led to a significant increase of manganese co-precipitation from 24.2% without seed addition to 39.5% at the addition of 1 g seed per 200 mL of PLS. Kinetics analysis revealed that Ni precipitation to form MHP follows the second-order reaction kinetics with activation energy of 94.6 kJ/mol.