Intensification of Nickel Bioleaching with Neutrophilic Bacteria Guyparkeria halophila as an Approach to Limitation of Sulfuric Acid Pollution

Hydrometallurgical production of valuable and non-ferrous metals is traditionally accompanied with acid waste effluents/acid mine drainage leading to acidification of the mining areas. The traditional cause of this pollution is the well-known technology based on the recovery of metals with acid solutions and the application of strong acidophilic leaching bacteria for the oxidation of sulfide ores. In our experiments, we used neutrophilic autotrophic bacteria (NAB) stimulated with formic acid or coupled with acidophilic bacteria. The first approach was based on using formic acid as an energetic substrate by autotrophic bacteria. In the second case, the NAB provided initial biogenic acidification for the following growth of the inoculated acidophilic bacteria. Our experiments resulted in increased nickel recovery from the low-grade sulfide ores, which was provided by the NAB in a medium supplemented with formic acid. Bioleaching resulted in 1116 mg Ni/L (69.75%) in the medium with formate and only 35.4 mg Ni/L without formate in 43 days. As a whole, our bench scale experiments showed that the stimulated NAB can be effective at pH 7–5. Partially replacing sulfuric acid with formic acid could also give benefits via the following natural degradation of acid wastes. As a whole, this approach is more environmentally friendly than conventional bioleaching techniques.

Nickel recovery from precipitate of NCA lithium-ion battery leach liquor by using disodium ethylene diamine tetraacetate

The nickel cobalt aluminium oxides (NCA) type Li-ion battery is a type of battery currently used in electric vehicles. The UGM battery team has recycled this type of battery to obtain high purity lithium metal. Aside from lithium, the NCA battery contains high-value metals, nickel is one of them. This experiment aims to test the ease of nickel to chelate with disodium ethylene diamine tetraacetate (EDTA). The experiment was carried out by means of a triple neck flask for 4 hours. The samples were taken at certain minutes and then fitted using a pseudo homogeneous first-order reaction equation. The chelate formed was further processed through multilevel precipitation or electrodialysis to separate nickel. Based on the experiment, nickel formed chelates optimally at 60°C using 0.086 M EDTA with the reaction constant for nickel being 1.4819 min−1. The Arrhenius constant and activation energy for nickel were 3.48×1011min−1 and 76,907 J/mole, respectively.

INCREASING OF METAL RECOVERY IN LEACHING PROCESS OF SPENT CATALYST AT LOW TEMPERATURE: THE ADDITION OF HYDROGEN PEROXIDE AND SODIUM CHLORIDE

One of the factors that affect the leaching process of a mineral source is the mineral characteristics of the raw materials. Not all mineral phases can be leached directly and completely. Thus, some minerals require special treatment so that the leaching process can take place optimally. This study will focus on studying the effect of additive compounds addition, i.e. hydrogen peroxide and sodium chloride, in the leaching process of spent catalyst using a sulfuric acid solution. The leaching process was carried out at a concentration of 1 M sulfuric acid solution for 240 minutes at room temperature. The hydrogen peroxide concentration was varied at 0–9%v/v, while the sodium chloride concentration was varied at 0–0.8 mol/L. The experimental results showed that the two additive compounds were able to increase nickel recovery significantly. The highest nickel recovery of 95.08% was achieved when hydrogen peroxide was used at 9%v/v. The nickel recovery is 3.5 times higher than without the addition of hydrogen peroxide. Meanwhile, sodium chloride concentration of 0.8 mol/L was able to provide the highest nickel recovery of 50.38% or an increase of 1.9 times compared to without the addition of sodium chloride.

Nickel Sorption from Sulphate Solutions of Oxidized Nickel Ores Leaching

The possibility of sorption extraction of nickel from leaching solutions of oxidized nickel ores of the Buruktal deposit is considered. Ionite Lewatit TP220 with bis-picolylamine functional groups is effective for nickel recovery against the background of high iron contents. Lewatit TP220 is mechanically strong enough for use in the resin-in-pulp process. Nickel sorption with satisfactory performance occurs both in the variant of sorption leaching and extraction from clarified solutions. At sorption from the pulp, the capacity for nickel was 5.44 mg/g, for iron, 25.17 mg/g. The use of 20% sulfuric acid provides quantitative nickel desorption. To obtain a higher quality nickel-containing product, it is recommended to additionally purify the resulting eluates from iron.