NICKEL/COBALT CONCENTRATE PROCESSING METHOD Russian patent published in 2004 - IPC

FIELD: mining industry. SUBSTANCE: method, which can be used to obtain pure nickel and cobalt compounds freed of associated impurity metals: iron, copper, and zinc, comprises following operations. Starting material is dissolved in sulfuric acid, which operation is accomplished by feeding starting material onto pulp prepared by dissolution of sulfuric acid in recycled aqueous solution, to which sulfuric acid-undissolved inorganic adsorbent was added. Concentration of sulfuric acid in pulp liquid phase is preliminarily adjusted to 0.6-2 M. Iron is then hydrolytically precipitated from solution by treating the latter with oxidant and acid-neutralizing reagent, after which pulp is separated into liquid and solid phases, precipitate being washed with water so that iron hydrate precipitate and iron hydrate precipitate-free solution are obtained. Further, solution is treated to precipitate copper in the form of poorly soluble salt and pulp is then is separated into copper salt and copper salt-free solution. At last, solution is treated with organic acid salt to extract zinc and obtain raffinate solution only containing nickel and cobalt. According to invention, above-mentioned inorganic adsorbent is perlite filtering powder, which is added to dilute sulfuric acid solution at weight ratio to summary content of iron and aluminum in starting material equal to (0.5-2.5):1, and above-mentioned recycled aqueous solution is a part of washing filtrate obtained after washing of iron hydrate precipitate taken in weight proportion to dry starting material equal to (0.5-2.5):1. EFFECT: increased degree of recovering nickel and cobalt, increased degree of removing impurities, and simplified process making it less expensive. 4 cl