Processing of Indonesian Low Grade Iron and Nickel Ores

• Main Author: , Basuki
• Format: Article NonPeerReviewed
• Published: [Yogyakarta] : Departmentof GeologicalEngineering,Facultyof Engin 2009
• Online Access: https://repository.ugm.ac.id/95287/; http://repository.ugm.ac.id/digitasi/index.php?module=cari_hasil_full&idbuku=3105
• Institution: Universitas Gadjah Mada

<p>Global production of iron and nickel has steadily increased over recent decades. Indonesia has great potency on iron and nickel resources. Especially nickel bearing ores have been produced, extracted and partly exported. Nevertheless, the steady depletion of mineral resource has encouraged the general policy of Indonesian Government on mineral conservation to effectively utilize Indonesian low grade ores. The utilization of these reserves can help to fulfill the national and global demands of iron and nickel that tend to increase in the future and to meet both economic and strategic needs of the nation. Indonesian iron ore is basically classified as low grade ores, as the iron contents of the ores are normally less than the minimum required for commercial industrial processing. This gives the challenge for the processing of the ores to be accepted economically in the industry. On the other hand, production of base metals from low grade ores using hydrometallurgical processes has been widely used all over the world. For low grade lateritic nickel ores, industrial implementation of hydrometallurgical process is mainly through high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) and recently also with atmospheric acid leaching. Nevertheless, these processing have not been implemented for Indonesian low grade nickel ore. This paper discusses the possible directions to process Indonesian iron and nickel ores and researches that have been carried out in the Institute of Technology Bandung.</p>