Nickel-sulfide ore

Direct l eaching of Concentrates. Sherri tt Gordon Mines, Ltd., has adapted the process first used on nickel sulfide ores to zinc sulfide oxidation with air in aqueous slurry under pressure (42,43). The concentrates are leached direcdy with return acid from the cells and the sulfide is converted to free sulfur ... 

One type of stainless steel contains 22% nickel by mass. How much nickel sulfide ore, NiS, is required to produce one metric ton of stainless... 

About 70% of the western world s supply of nickel comes from iron and nickel sulfide ores that were brought close to the surface nearly 2 billion years ago by the violent impact of a huge meteor at Sudbury, Ontario. The ore is first roasted (heated in air) to form nickel(II) oxide, which is reduced to the metal either elec-trolytically or by reaction with hydrogen gas in the first step of the Mond process ... 

It has been mentioned in an earlier chapter that nickel deposits are basically of two types sulfidic and lateritic (oxide). The scenario of nickel extraction from nickel sulfide concentrates and nickeliferrous pyrrho tite (these two are the two products of physical beneficiation of nickel sulfide ores), and from limonitics and gamieritics (these are the common lateritic ores) has been presented in Figure 5.6. It can be seen that nickel is extracted from its various sources by pyro, pyro-hydro and hydroprocessing. The account given here pertains to the latter two processes applied to the various nickel sources. 

In nickel smelting particles of nickel sulfide ore are first oxidized. 

These topics are discussed in detail in monographs and reviews (NAS 1975, IPCS 1991, Barceloux 1999, Mastromatteo 1986, Sunderman 1984, 2001a). Nickel constitutes less than 0.008% of the Earth s crust. The world s nickel production is obtained primarily from sulfide ores (e.g., pentlandite and nickeliferous pyrrhotite) and, to lesser extent, from oxides ores (e.g., laterite). Nickel sulfide ores, usually mined underground, are crushed and ground, concentrated by physical methods, converted to nickel subsulfide matte, and roasted to nickel oxide. The nickel oxide may be refined electrolytically to yield nickel cathodes or refined by the Mond process, which involves reduction with hydrogen, reaction with carbon monoxide to yield nickel carbonyl, and thermal decomposition to deposit pure nickel. Nickel oxide ores, usually mined in open pits, are smelted to produce ferronickel for use in stainless steel. 

Natural occurrence. Palladium is a rare element in the Earth s crust with an average abundance of 10 pg/kg (i.e., 10 ppb wt.) and hence the most abundant of the PGMs. It is found as a native element alloyed with platinum or gold, or in the combined form in minerals such as stibiopalladinite, braggite, porpezite, and some nickel sulfide ores. 

Compared with thionocarbamates, these dithionocarbamates perform better flotation performances. For example, the following dithionocarbamates had been applied successfully in the flotation of nickel sulfide ore in Canada and Australia. 

Gum etherates are usually used as the depressant of talcum, mica, serpentine, and chlorite. Meantime, they are also applied in the flotation of nickel sulfide ore and nonferrous metals sulfide ores, as well as some nonsulfide minerals such as sylvite and boron salt. According to the foreign patent, the flotation index is still good when gum is used with wetting agent in the flotation of nickel sulfide ore containing 50 % talcum. 

Figure 31.5 The flash smelting method for refining of nickel sulfide ores [31.4]...

Ruthenium is produced mainly from an anode slime yielded when crude copper or crude nickel, obtained from nickel sulfide ores, is electrolytically refined. The anode slime contains precious metal elements. It is treated with hot aqua regia and platinum, palladium and gold are separated as their chloro complexes. Then, by nitric acid treatment, fusion treatment with NaHS04, and fusion treatment with Na202, silver, rhodium and iridium are separated. The residual ruthenium and osmium salts are dissolved in water, and the osmium is separated by treatment with chlorine, hydrochloric acid and nitric acid. The ruthenium salt is treated with ammonium chloride to afford a ruthenium salt ((NH4)3RuCl6), and the reduction with hydrogen yields ruthenium powder [1,4-6]. 

The first recovered sulfur from natural gas plant in Canada had opened the previous year, in May 1951, at the Jumping Pound, AB, site of Shell, west of Calgary. In its first year of operation, this novel operation in Canada produced just 15 tonnes of sulfur. The following year, recovered sulfur shipments from sour gas from Shell and Royalite amounted to 8,100 tonnes. The initial capacity of Jumping Pound was 15 tepd, which then was steadily expanded 30 tepd in 1952 50 tepd in January 1955 80 tepd in 1956 240 tepd in 1968. An early consumer of the Shell sulfur was Inland Chemical in Fort Saskatchewan, AB. They opened a sulfuric acid plant in 1955 ( 1 million) to supply Sherritt-Gordon ammonium sulfate was produced as a by-product of their nickel-sulfide ore treatment. 

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