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An Overview of Nickel Utilization from Laterite Ore

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Advances and Innovations in Ferronickel-Making

Abstract

Ferronickel is an important alloy and intermediate product for manufacturing many advanced materials with versatile functions, e.g., stainless steel. Its properties and performance are mainly relied on the content of nickel, which is now primarily extracted from laterite ore. This chapter provides an overview of nickel utilization from laterite ore. Based on a brief introduction of properties of metallic nickel, it summarizes the applications of nickel, demand of nickel, resources of nickel, and metallurgical processes of laterite ore, in which the rotary kiln-electric furnace (RKEF) smelting process is dominant for production of ferronickel. Lastly, it discusses the challenges and development of ferronickel-making.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Guanghui Li, Zhiwei Peng & Tao Jiang

  2. Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Jun Luo & Mingjun Rao

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  1. Guanghui Li
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Correspondence to Guanghui Li .

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Li, G., Luo, J., Rao, M., Peng, Z., Jiang, T. (2023). An Overview of Nickel Utilization from Laterite Ore. In: Advances and Innovations in Ferronickel-Making. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5227-2_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5227-2_1

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