Effect of substitution of additive oil with bituminous coal in the process of reducing laterites

Abstract

Due the urgent need that Cuba has to extract the nickel and cobalt present in the lateritic minerals of the municipality of Moa in the province of Holguin from the metallurgical process known as Caron Technology, managing to reduce their production costs and increasing or maintaining the extraction efficiency, the effect of substitution of oil used as an additive in the Herreshoff type reduction furnaces by bank-level bituminous coal was investigated. In it was proven, using a bottle furnace to reduce the mineral and a bank of reactors to leach the ammonia pulp, that when using from 4% of bituminous coal it is possible to replace the oil without affecting the nickel and cobalt extractions. The replacement of additive oil with bituminous coal was preliminarily feasible from the economic point of view, saving around 23,55 millions USD/a using 4 % bituminous coal, and 52,91 millions USD/a using 5% bituminous coal.