Leaching Behavior of Lateritic Grade Ore from Sulawesi

Low grade ore is a by-product of the laterite ore mining and processing. This kind of ore cannot be processed through high temperature route due to its high energy consumption. Another route that can potentially process this ore is a low temperature route of process. The performance of the whole process is determined by the leaching step in which nickel and iron is dissolved in acid media. Therefore, the leaching behavior of this ore is worth to be examined. The leaching experiment on lateritic ores shows that the iron and nickel dissolution behavior is very similar. At low acid concentration, only small amount of nickel and iron can be dissolved in acid, whereas at high acid concentration, both of them dissolve in very significant amount. The maximum percent of extraction for both metals are almost 100 persen. The 2nd International Conference of Indonesian Chemical Society.