Guanghui Li - Advances and Innovations in Ferronickel-Making

Jointly published with Metallurgical Industry Press

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As an important strategic metal, nickel has found extensive application in stainless-steel industry and other fields. Electrolytic nickel is usually used as the feed for the traditional nickel-based stainless-steel production process. However, its production relies on the nickel sulfide ore resource which is gradually depleted. As the supply of nickel sulfide ore can no longer meet the demand of stainless-steel industry, other nickel ore resources, mainly laterite ore, are receiving increasing attentions in producing ferronickel which is now replacing electrolytic nickel as nickel source for the development of stainless-steel industry.

Over the past two decades, the global ferronickel industry has experienced a rapid expansion, as witnessed by the development of the rotary kiln-electric furnace (RKEF) smelting technology for ferronickel-making. Nevertheless, the RKEF process still faces a few intractable problems, such as huge energy consumption and massive discharge of ferronickel slag which causes head-scratching environmental pollution further endangering the survival of ferronickel industry. In China, there exist more rigorous challenges mainly due to the shortage of laterite ore that results in heavy dependence on importation in addition to the above problems. It is urgent to develop fresh processes, methods, and technologies for efficient and sustainable ferronickel-making.

In view of the above problems, the authors of this book and their research team have been wedded to innovating ferronickel-making for nearly twenty years from the aspects of development of new ferronickel production process, innovation of existing processes, value-added utilization of ferronickel slag, etc. For instance, they invented a process for preparing ferronickel from laterite ore by selective solid-state reduction-magnetic separation, allowing decrease of reduction temperature by 500 C and cost saving of over 30% in comparison with the traditional RKEF process. They also developed a pioneering technology for regulating slag system of reductive smelting of laterite ore and a novel technology for controlling softening-melting performance of laterite ore, enabling decline of smelting temperature by 100 C and electricity saving of 600 kWh per ton of ferronickel. Moreover, they proposed new methods for preparation of forsterite refractory materials and lightweight thermal insulation materials from ferronickel slag, realizing highly efficient value-added utilization of the solid waste. These efforts point to a feasibility to solve the tough problems existing in the process of ferronickel-making. The authors are thus committed to sharing these advances through the present book with readers although it is clearly not comprehensive in its coverage of relevant information.

This book covers six chapters and is organized following the hierarchy of basic research, technological development, and industrial application. Chapter highlights a creative technical route of co-processing stainless-steel pickling sludge, which contains multiple valuable elements and sulfur that hinders its utilization and deteriorates the product quality when recycled as the feed for ferronickel production, with laterite ore via the RKEF process, based on analysis of desulfurization behaviors of the sludge, including thermodynamics, phase transformation, and off-gas emission characteristics during reduction.

The work involved in this book is a part of outcomes of research supported by the Basic Science CenterProgram, General Program, Youth Programs, and Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation ofChina (Grants 72088101, 52174288, 51904341 and 51804346, and 51234008, respectively) and the NationalNatural Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars (Grant 50725416), etc. In the process oftechnological development and industrial application, it has received generous support from domestic andforeign enterprises such as the Guangdong Guangqing Metal Technology Co., Ltd., Baosteel Desheng StainlessSteel Co., Ltd., and Indonesia SILO Company. The authors hereby express their sincere thanks.

It would be impossible to acknowledge all the people who in one way or another helped the authors with the essence of the book. However, the authors are particularly grateful to Yuanbo Zhang, Xin Zhang, Foquan Gu, Qing Ye, Lei Ye, Huimin Tang, Jian Wang, Tangming Shi, Qian Zhi, Junhao Liu, Hao Jia, Jiang Wang, and other graduate students who participated in the relevant research and data collection. They also owe a great debt to CAE Academician Guanzhou Qiu for his concern and support over the years and to their colleagues for their full backing during the preparation of the book.

The authors would like to thank the Metallurgical Industry Press and Springer for their expert advice and cooperation throughout the publication process.