PERILAKU PELARUTAN LOGAM NIKEL DAN BESI DARI BIJIH NIKEL KADAR RENDAH SULAWESI TENGGARA

Abstract

DISSOLUTION BEHAVIOR OF NICKEL AND IRON METAL FROM LOW GRADE NICKEL ORE FROM SOUTH EAST OF SULAWESI. Indonesia has large amount of low grade nickel laterite ore deposit that has not been processed. Nickel demand is predicted to increase in the future. This leads to the need of research regarding nickel ore processing. One of the processing routes can be used to treat nickel ore is hydrometallurgical process. The most important part in hydrometallurgical process is ore leaching. In leaching stage, iron and nickel is extracted from the ore through dissolution in acid media. The important variables in nickel and iron dissolution are ore characteristic, concentration of acid, and dissolution temperature. The ore with more complex mineral composition will have lower extraction percentage due to the higher consumption of acid. The increasing of acid concentration leads to the increasing of extraction percentage, which is the result of the increasing of chemical reaction towards reaction product formation. On the other hand, the increasing of temperature also leads to the increasing of extraction percentage, which is caused by the increasing of chemical and diffusion reaction coefficient. At concentration of acid 30% and process temperature 90 °C, the extraction percentage of iron and nickel are 100 and 82 %, respectively.