Segregation roasting of nickel,copper and cobalt from deep-sea manganese nodules

The recovery of nickel, copper and cobalt from ocean manganese nodules by a segregation roasting technique was investigated under a wide range of conditions with several nodule samples all of which gave similar results. The best conditions for the segregation of the metals were achieved with CaCl₂ as the chloride source at a batch retention time of approximately two hours; the highest recoveries were obtained at approximately 850°C for copper and at 1,050°C for nickel and cobalt. At 850°C, copper recovery was 75%, but nickel and cobalt recoveries were only about 25%. At 1,050°C, the nickel and cobalt recoveries were increased to about 60%, but the copper recovery dropped to only 35%. Electron-probe microanalysis showed the segregated metal to be an alloy, indicating that gaseous reactions play an important role in the reduction of chlorides to metal during the process.