SAPROLITE NICKEL ORE REDUCTION WITH NH4Cl, CaO, AND SULPHUR ADDITION TO PRODUCE FERRONICKEL NUGGET

• Main Author: RIKSA SURYADI SASTRA (NIM : 12512032), R.
• Format: Final Project
• Language: Indonesia
• Online Access: https://digilib.itb.ac.id/gdl/view/30712
• Institution: Institut Teknologi Bandung

Nickel (Ni) is one of metal substances which has lot of usages in our daily life. 90% of nickel production used as alloy every year. Two third of that amount is used to strengthening stainless steel which consists of iron, chrome, and nickel. Other than that, nickel is used as material for cooking, gadget, medical instruments, transportation, and power plant. World laterite nickel ore resources are arround 72%, while it’s extraction processing is only 42% of world’s total nickel processing. It means, there are still lot of laterite nickel ore resources which has not been processed and become a challange for metallurgical engineers for the future. The study begin with ore preparation such as drying, grinding, and screening. Then, ore is analyzed by XRD and XRF. Coal is analyzed in proximate and ultimate analysis. Reduction process is held in muffle furnace with variant of NH4Cl and sulphur addition, while CaO addition in fixed value. Variation of NH4Cl has done in 5%; 7,5%; 10%; 12,5%; and 15% addition. While sulphur addition has done in 0,5%; 1%; and 1,5%. Reduction process using isothermal temperature gradient consists of 3 steps. First step is isothermal stage at 1200 oC for 30 minutes. Second step is temperature gradient stage to 1370 oC for 17 minutes. Third step is isothermal stage at 1370 oC for 45 minutes. Reductionproduct is ferronickel nugget is analyzed by X-Ray Mapping to get surface view information of nugget, the content of nickel and iron, and also the distribution of elements in nugget surface. Another reduction product, ferronickel slag is analyzed by XRD to get dominant minerals information composing in it. This study result shows that using of isothermal temperature gradient will produce a ferronickel nugget at final temperature of 1370 oC. NH4Cl and CaO fluxes <br /> <br /> addition influence the reduction product as well. From this study, the highest recovery and content of nickel and iron are 40,1% and 43,34% for recovery and 10,55% and 63,51% for content. The biggest diameter of 4,27 mm is produced by 15% NH4Cl addition. The biggest mean nugget amount of 13 pieces are produced by 7,5% NH4Cl addition. The highest metal recovery percentage of 61% is produced by 15% NH4Cl addition.