Recovery of nickel from falcondo tailings

2001年，全世界生产了110多万公吨的原镍。原生镍主要用于与其他金属形成合金，以生产耐腐蚀材料。2001年，世界原镍产量的65%用于制造不锈钢。 Falcondo（Falconbridge Dominicana，C. por A.），位于多米尼加共和国，拥有30，000公吨镍的生产能力。在Falcondo，褐铁矿原料是通过低冲击破碎和筛分从其余矿石中提取的。 被拒绝的材料被称为“尾矿”。 不适合在Falcondo的电竖式还原炉中熔炼的尾矿含有约1wt%的Ni。Falcondo每天生产约2400公吨尾矿，这意味着每天约有24公吨镍没有从采矿作业中回收并被丢弃。 伦敦金属交易所原镍的中期价格为每公吨11，000美元，每日被剔除的尾矿中的镍价值为264，000美元。 假设每年营运350天及回收率为85%，则从尾矿中回收镍可产生的潜在收入每年将超过79，000，000美元。本提案旨在确定回收损失在尾矿中的镍的最佳方式，并详细说明潜在商业流程的技术可行性和可能面临的挑战，需要透彻了解现有文献，对预期进料进行全面分析和表征，对潜在的工艺化学品进行热力学分析，并进行一系列实验性试验，以验证所确定的工艺选项的技术可行性。 一些投机性的探索性测试，追求以前从未尝试过的工艺选项也将进行。

Over 1.1 million metric tonnes  of primary nickel was produced around the world in 2001. Primary nickel is mainly used in alloying with other metals for the production of corrosion resistant materials. In 2001, 65% of the world production of primary nickel was consumed in the manufacturing of stainless steel.  Falcondo (Falconbridge Dominicana, C. por A.), located in Dominican Republic, has a production capacity of 30,000 metric tonnes of nickel. At Falcondo, limonite feed is extracted from the rest of the ore by low-impact crushing and screening.  The rejected material is referred to as 'tailings'.  The tailings, which are not suitable for smelting in Falcondo's electric shaft reduction furnace, contain about 1 wt% of Ni. Falcondo produces about 2400 metric tonnes of tailings daily meaning that about 24 metric tonnes of Ni is not recovered from the mining operation and rejected each day.  With a medium term LME price of primary nickel of US$11,000 per metric tonne, the nickel in the tailings rejected each day is worth US$264,000.  Assuming 350 operating days per year and a recovery of 85 %, the potential revenue that could be generated by recovering the nickel in the tailings would be over US$79,000,000 per year. The present proposal aims to identify the best means to recover the nickel lost to the tailings and to elaborate on the technical feasibility and possible challenges of a potential commercial process.It requires a thorough understanding of the available literature, a comprehensive analysis and characterization of the anticipated feed materials, a thermodynamic analysis of the potential process chemistries and a series of experimental trials to verify the technical feasibility of the identified process options.  Some speculative exploratory tests pursuing previously untried process options will also be undertaken.