Investigation of structural properties and enrichment of Manisa-Turgutlu-Çaldağ nickel deposits

Çaldağ lateritic Fe-Ni-Co ore deposit is located at nothern Tutgutlu in Manisa. The ore deposit is sperated into several zones according to physical,mineralogical and chemical compositions. In this study,the enrichment of Çaldağ Ni ore, mined by Bosphorous Mining Cop.was investigated. First, the samples were collected from four different locations of the deposit, size reduced by crushing-grinding and classified to obtain different size fractions and concentration by jigging was applied. Raw material and slime product of the shaking table were subjected to direct oxid flotation and reverse flotation of Ni by using certain flotation regents. But, excessive amount of slime material coated the mineral surface to prevent collector adsorpsion and required higher reagent concentration. Since Çaldağ- Ni ore includes iron minerals as gangue material magnetic seperation method was also applied,but due to coating of Ni by Fe mineral the seperation was unseccessful. Then it was concluded that, seperation by phisical methods was not possible fort the ore. For this reason, the Çaldağ Ni ore was dissolved in sulfuric acid solution and dissolution properties of Ni was investigated in the raw and calcined ore to investigate certain dissolution parameters and to determine the optimum leaching conditions. After several sets of experiments, optimum conditions are determined as; mixing rate/time:700 rpm/12 hours, acid concentration: 75 gr/lt, temperature:80C?, particle size:-1.0 mm and solvent type:H2SO4 Interestingly, due to the formation of sintering during calcination leaching raw Ni ore yielded better results than calcined ore. Keywords: Lateritic Fe-Ni-Co ore, jiging, shaking table, magnetic seperation, flotation, calcination, leaching, sintering.