Deep Removal of Silicon from High Ice Nickel Leaching Solution

Nickel ore, as an important metal resource, plays a very important role in industrial construction. The world's proven nickel resources are about 160 million tons, of which 30% are sulfide nickel ore and 70% are laterite nickel ore. About 60% of nickel products come from sulfide ore.

With the increase in global nickel consumption, relying on sulfide nickel ore to produce metallic nickel can no longer meet the needs of rapid global economic development. Moreover, the reserves of sulfide nickel ore have sharply decreased in recent years. In the future, we will inevitably turn our attention to the larger reserves of laterite nickel ore.

High ice nickel is a sulfide eutectic of nickel, copper, cobalt, iron and other metals produced by primary smelting of nickel concentrate through electric and converter processes. After fine grinding and crushing, high ice nickel is separated by flotation and magnetic separation to obtain nickel concentrate containing 67%-68% nickel.

High nickel matte can be produced using laterite nickel ore or sulfide nickel ore. The production process is as follows: laterite nickel ore is added with sulfur-containing materials (pyrite, gypsum) -1500-1600 ℃ blast furnace smelting (or electric furnace smelting) - low nickel matte - converter smelting - high nickel matte (high nickel matte) or laterite nickel ore - RKEF process - high nickel iron - after adding sulfur-containing materials, it is blown in the converter - high nickel matte.

Due to the development of new energy direction, this process has been given renewed attention, and it can not only produce high nickel ice through the above process, but also produce high nickel ice through high nickel iron or water extracted nickel, and then produce nickel sulfate.

Red clay nickel ore is mainly divided into three mineral components with oil extraction value: surface limonite layer, humus layer on the bedrock, and transition layer between limonite and humus. The nickel containing minerals in limonite are goethite and hematite; The nickel containing minerals in humus soil are mainly silicon magnesium nickel minerals with high magnesium content.

The main element contents in laterite nickel ore are arranged in descending order as follows: silicon dioxide, magnesium, iron, nickel, and aluminum, with silicon dioxide, magnesium, and iron contents being 20-25 times, 10-20 times, and 10-15 times higher than nickel content, respectively.

Nickel cobalt hydroxide cake is an intermediate product of nickel cobalt leaching from laterite nickel ore, and also a semi-finished product of nickel cobalt production through leaching extraction. A high silicon content has little effect on the production of nickel cobalt hydroxide cake from laterite nickel ore, but has a greater impact on the later stages of nickel cobalt production from semi-finished nickel cobalt hydroxide cake.

The HP4800 silicon removal material developed by Haipu is a nano hybrid adsorption material. The polymer silicon removal material has abundant nanopores and excellent hydraulic diffusion performance, ensuring fast silicon removal adsorption rate and high activity of the adsorbent. The polymer chains in the adsorbent have high affinity with nanoparticles, providing good coating for nanoparticles and ensuring high mechanical strength and stability of the adsorbent.

The following table shows the silicon removal effect of our HP4800 product on the leachate of lithium iron phosphate waste batteries in the lithium battery recycling industry. The silicon content can be processed to below 1.