Ni-Co 2021: The 5th International Symposium on Nickel and Cobalt: Hydrometallurgy II
Sponsored by: The Metallurgy & Materials Society of the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, TMS Extraction and Processing Division, TMS: Hydrometallurgy and Electrometallurgy Committee, TMS: Pyrometallurgy Committee
Program Organizers: Corby Anderson, Colorado School of Mines; Dean Gregurek, RHI Magnesita; Mari Lundström, Aalto University; Christina Meskers, SINTEF; Prabhat Tripathy, Batelle Energy Alliance (Idaho National Laboratory); Fiseha Tesfaye, Metso Metals Oy, Åbo Akademi University; Yuanbo Zhang, Central South University; Sari Muinonen, Glencore; Graeme Goodall, XPS- Glencore; Shijie Wang, Coeur Mining, Inc
Tuesday 2:00 PM
March 16, 2021
Room: RM 43
Location: TMS2021 Virtual
2:00 PM
Effective Treatment of Domestic US Cobalt Ores and Concentrates: Andy Tomaka1; Corby Anderson1; 1Colorado School of Mines
The global battery revolution currently relies upon battery technology requiring increasing demand for cobalt. As such cobalt is an essential Critical Material. Currently, there is very little US production of cobalt and most of this is as a by product copper and nickel production. The primary barrier to production is that primary cobalt deposits are mostly contained in the arsenic bearing minerals cobaltite, CoAsS, and scudderdite, CoAs. This current project will demonstrate the effective selective separation of cobalt from the arsenic in these minerals. A clean cobalt concentrate is produced. Arsenic can be stabilized as a ferrihydrite, scorodite of a patented cerium based technology. Potential flowsheets and pertinent economic estimates will be provided.
2:20 PM
Separating and Recovering Cobalt and Iron from Co, Fe-bearing Metallurgical Slag via Acid Leaching Process: Yuanbo Zhang1; Yikang Tu1; Zijian Su1; Tao Jiang1; 1Central South University
Co-containing metallurgical slag has been regarded as one kind of potentially recyclable Co resources. Pyrite cinder is a typical metallurgical slag produced in sulfuric acid industry, which contains a significant grade of valuable metals, such as iron, cobalt, etc. However, it is very difficult to utilize the pyrite cinder due to its low surface activity. In this study, an acid leaching process was used to separate iron and cobalt from the pyrite cinder. The results indicated that the leaching efficiency of cobalt achieved more than 98% under optimal conditions. Under the phosphate system, most of iron formed insoluble iron phosphate precipitate, which was easily separated from cobalt by filtration. The cobalt was recovered by organic extraction and the battery-grade precursor of iron phosphate was finally obtained through purification.
2:40 PM
Starved Acid Leaching Technology for Nickel and Cobalt Recovery from Lean Resources: David Dreisinger1; 1University of British Columbia
The Starved Acid Leaching Technology (SALT) uses reduced amounts of sulfuric acid to leach a portion of the nickel and cobalt from lean ore materials. The use of acid must be economic with respect to the nickel and cobalt extracted. Lean resources of saprolite nickel laterite ores may become economic through application of SALT. The SALT process can be tailored to recover various intermediate products including mixed hydroxide precipitate (MHP) or mixed sulphide precipitate (MS). The current development of the SALT process and the prospects for refining MHP or MS to high value nickel and cobalt products will be presented. The SALT technology applied to lean resources may increase the supply of nickel and cobalt for battery material manufacture to meet the demands of electrification in the transport sector.