SUMMARY INTRODUCTIONThe AMAX High Pressure Sulfuric Acid Leaching Process is capable of efficiently extracting nickel and cobalt values from both high-iron limonite and high-magnesium gamierite fractions of any laterite ore body.! Depending upon the composition of the ore blend and the leaching conditions, the leach liquor may vary widely in composition. For recovering nickel and cobalt from these liquors, the hydrogen sulfide precipitation process was selected because of its versatility and selectivity with respect to the major impurities, magnesium, manganese, iron, and aluminum.The process practiced on commercial scale at Moa Bay2 has certain shortcomings. Due to severe operating conditions (a temperature of -120°C and a total pressure of -150 psig), expensive high-pressure autoclaves and pumps were needed as well as an elaborate system to recover and recycle a large quantity of H2S gas. Moreover, considerable scaling of the vessels was experienced so that the design at Moa Bay included four precipitation trains-three intended to be in operation while the fourth was being descaled.A bench-scale research program at AMAX not only resulted in a better understanding of the physical chemistry of the nickel sulfide precipitation but also in an improved process 3 that operates at temperatures below 100°C and a pressure of one atmosphere gauge or less. A pilot plant was constructed to demonstrate this process and to gather information for the engineering design of a commercial plant. The results of the bench-scale test program were presented at the 109th AIME Annual Meeting at Las Vegas. 4 That paper emphasized the physical chemistry of the precipitation process and how different process variables affected the precipitation efficiency. The objective of this paper is to
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