The Effect of Concentration and Temperature on Nickel Extraction from Laterite Nickel Ore Using Atmospheric Pressure Acid Leaching (APAL) Method Deborah Bianca Elisabeth Lasut (a), Riskaviana Kurniawati (a*), Wiwik Dahani (a), Subandrio (a)
Department of Mining Engineering, Faculty of Earth Technology and Energy, Trisakti University, Indonesia
Abstract
Nickel laterites are metallic mineral products of ultramafic rocks intensive weathering. Nickel (Ni) can be extracted in Hydrometallurgy method. Hydrometallurgy process, mostly known as Leaching, uses acids to extract nickel from low graded nickel laterite ores. Unfortunately, Caron process and High Pressure Acid Leaching (HPAL) as the methods of hydrometallurgy have certain of deficiency, therefore in fixing this issue of Caron and HPAL process, applying Atmospheric Pressure Acid Leaching (APAL) is a proper method. Atmospheric Pressure Acid Leaching is a process to extract nickel laterite ores using acids to dissolve in atmospheric pressure condition. Selecting the acid, acid concentration, and leaching temperature effect the recovery of nickel content. Furthermore, this experiment determined the effects of sulphuric acid concentration of 1M, 3M, and 5M, each at leaching temperature of 80°-C, 85°-C, and 90°-C, showed that the maximum nickel dissolution is by using sulphuric acid with 1M concentration at 80°-C. The enhancement result of Ni content leached by 1M sulphuric acid at 80°-C reached up to 79,25% in leaching process under atmospheric pressure.
