Recycling Nickel Slag by Aluminum Dross: Iron-extraction and Secondary Slag Stabilization

抄録

Nickel slag is a metallurgical solid waste from nickel refineries, which can be recycled as one of excellent secondary sources due to valuable iron contents. In this work, the approach of recycling nickel slag by aluminum dross was proposed, and the processes of network modification of slags and reduction were successively investigated at 1773 K. Upon the thermodynamic calculations, CaO was chosen as the modifier in order to obtain a higher activity of ‘FeO', and basicity of the modified slag was determined as 1.0. Element mapping analysis of the modified slag showed that ‘FeO' had been separated from the structure of nickel slag. After aluminothermic reduction for 120 min, the recovery degree of iron and copper was 94.35% and 97.89%, respectively. In addition, the secondary slag stabilization was discussed, and the utilization of the produced Fe–Cu alloy and the secondary slag was analyzed.