Enhancing the Nickel Recovery of Morowali Nickel Laterite in Atmospheric Citric Acid Leaching
Keywords:
laterite ore, atmospheric leaching, citric acid, hydrometallurgy, nickel recoveryAbstract
Morowali has a lot of laterite ore deposits wich is one of the mineral resources containing several kinds of metal elements, consist of Iron (Fe), Silicone (Si), Nickel (Ni), Chromium (Cr), Manganese (Mn), Calcium (Ca), Phosphate (P), Zinc (Zn), Vanadium (V), and Scandium (Sc). Nickel is a metal that have high economic value because it various benefits, such as the production of stainless steel, electric plates, coins, batteries, and catalysts. There are two common nickel laterite processing that are pyrometallurgy and hydrometallurgy. In this study, hydrometallurgy method is applied to process nickel laterite of Morowali. An important step in this process line is ore leaching. This research is conducted to find a condition in atmospheric leaching of Morowali nickel laterite. This investigation work deals with varying the concentration of citric acid of 0.5 to 2.0 M and reaction time 10 to 120 minutes. The constant parameter are leaching temperature (K), stirring speed (rpm), and particle size (mesh). The results showed that the higher concentration of citric acid, the higher nickel recovery. The good conditions is obtained at concentration of citric acid 2.0 M and leaching time of 120 minutes, it proved by the amount of nickel recovery reached 1197.50 ppm.
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