Collaborative separation of nickel and iron from nickel laterite ore and red mud

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated a nickel laterite ore with Ni content of 1.56 wt% and a red mud with Fe content of 20.98 wt%, the main Ni-bearing mineral in the nickel laterite ore was nickel-lizardite, and the main Fe-bearing mineral in the red mud was hematite. A novel process of roasting and magnetic separation was purposed to extract nickel and iron from the nickel laterite ore and red mud. The nickel laterite ore, red mud, calcium chloride, and coke were mixed and put in a roaster for roasting, and the ferronickel concentrate was obtained from the roasted ore by magnetic separation. The results showed that a ferronickel concentrate with Ni content of 7.97 wt%, Fe content of 73.09 wt%, iron recovery of 76.87%, and nickel recovery of 90.28% was obtained under the optimal conditions: a mass ratio of m (nickel laterite ore): m (red mud) : m (coke) : m (calcium chloride) : of 0.6:0.4:0.2:0.1, a roasting temperature of 1373 K, a roasting time of 90 min, a grinding fineness of − 0.045 mm occupying 90%, and a magnetic field strength of 0.20 T. The main minerals in the ferronickel product were metallic Fe and FeNi.

KEYWORDS:

• Ferronickel
• nickel laterite ore
• red mud
• roasting
• magnetic separation

Acknowledgments

This study was funded by the Technology Innovation Center for Comprehensive Utilization of Strategic Mineral Resources, Ministry of Natural Resources (Grant No.CCUM-KY-2304), the Sichuan Province Central Government Guides Local Funds for Science and Technology Development (Grant Nos. 2023ZYD0028), the Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Grant Nos. 24NSFSC2150 and 2022YFS0509), and Sichuan Province natural resources Department project (KJ-2023-003).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Junhui Xiao: writing – guidance & review &riting – original draft; Renju Cheng: review & editing; Junhui Zhang: figures & tables.