Process for the recovery of nickel
AssigneeHenkel Corporation
InventorsMichael J. Virnig, J. Murdoch MacKenzie
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process for the recovery of nickel from a nickel containing ore in which the ore, particularly a laterite ore, is initially leached with an aqueous acid solution, after which the nickel is precipitated as nickel hydroxide by adding a hydroxide to the aqueous acid leach solution containing the nickel, followed by a re-leaching of the nickel with an aqueous ammoniacal solution and recovery of the nickel by a solvent extraction of the nickel from the aqueous ammoniacal solution with an organic phase of a water insoluble oxime extractant dissolved in a water-immiscible hydrocarbon solvent and the nickel recovered by electrowinning the nickel from the aqueous acid stripping solution employed to strip the nickel from the organic phase.
Claims19
A process for the recovery of nickel from a nickel containing ore comprising:
- (a) leaching the ore with an acid to provide an aqueous acid leach solution containing nickel values;
- (b) adding a hydroxide to the aqueous acid leach solution to precipitate the nickel as nickel hydroxide;
- (c) re-leaching of the nickel hydroxide with an aqueous ammoniacal solution to provide an aqueous ammoniacal solution containing nickel values;
- (d) contacting the aqueous ammoniacal solution containing the nickel values with a water insoluble oxime extractant, capable of extracting nickel from said aqueous ammoniacal, dissolved in a water-immiscible hydrocarbon solvent so as to provide an organic phase, for a time sufficient to extract the nickel values from said aqueous ammoniacal solution containing the nickel values thereby providing an aqueous phase of the ammoniacal solution from which nickel values have been removed and a water-immiscible organic phase, now containing the extracted nickel values;
- (e) separating the aqueous and the organic phases;
- (f) contacting the organic phase containing the nickel values with an aqueous acid solution thereby stripping the nickel values from the organic phase into the aqueous acid stripping solution;
- (g) separating the aqueous acid stripping solution now containing the nickel values from the water-immiscible organic phase;
- and
- (h) electrowinning the nickel from the aqueous acid stripping solution to remove and recover the nickel.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.