Hybinette Process

Hybinette A process for extracting nickel from sulfide ores. The nickel ore that occurs in Canada is a mixture of the sulfides of nickel, copper, and iron. Several methods have been used to separate these metals. In the Hybinette process, the ore is first smelted in a blast furnace, yielding a nickel-copper matte (i.e., a mixture of their lower sulfides). This is roasted to remove sulfur and leached with dilute sulfuric acid to remove copper. The resulting crude nickel oxide is used as the anode of an electrochemical cell. The nickel deposits on the cathode, which is contained in a cloth bag. Precious metals collect in the anode slime. The process was invented by N. V Hybinette in 1904 and operated at the Kristiansand refinery, Norway, from 1910. 

The first electrolytic nickel refinery plant, treating nickel metal anodes, was built by Hybinette in Kristiansand, Norway, in 1910, and this plant was acquired by Falconbridge in 1928. INCO developed electrorefining of nickel sulfide matte anodes in the 1950s. In a typical electrowinning process, the raw material is first smelted to a matte and then leached in a sulfate or chloride solution. The sulfur of the raw material is oxidized to insoluble elemental sulfur or soluble sulfate. The nickel contents of the mattes treated hydrometallurgically are in the... 

After solution purification, cobalt can be deposited as Co(II) or Co(III) hydroxide. The cobalt solutions are often too low in cobalt for direct electrowinning. In this case, cobalt hydroxide is precipitated, thickened, and redissolved to cobalt tankhouse electrolyte and then electrowon [77]. The cobalt hydroxide has been reduced in electric furnaces to an alloy with 80% Co, 18% Fe, and 0.8% Ni, cast to anodes, and electrorefined. The process was done in Hybinette cells, and the solution contained 60-120 g L Co, pH was 3.3-48, and the temperature was 60 °C. The current density was 160-240 A m , cell voltage was 1.2-1.8V, and the current efficiency was 95%. This process is not used anymore because of the lack of... 

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