Separation and recovery of nickel and cobalt in ammoniacal systems

A Process for the separation and recovery of nickel from an ammoniacal ammonium carbonate liquor containing nickel II ions and cobalt III ions by liquid-liquid extraction including the successive steps of:

• (a) oxidising the majority of any cobalt II ammines in the ammoniacal liquor to cobalt III;
• (b) extracting nickel from the ammoniacal liquor with an organic reagent organic reagent selected from the group consisting of 2-hydroxy-5t-nonyl acetophenoneoxime, 2-hydroxy-5-nonyl salicylaldoxime, alkyl, aryl and halide substituted beta diketones to form a nickel loaded organic phase and an ammoniacal ammonium carbonate phase containing cobalt;
• and
• (c) stripping the nickel loaded organic phase;
• characterised in that the nickel loaded organic phase is stripped by contacting the organic phase with an ammoniacal ammonium carbonate solution to form a nickel loaded aqueous strip liquor and in that ammoniacal ammonium carbonate solutions are the only aqueous phases involved in the process.