Microbial Recovery of Nickel from Lateritic (Oxidic) Nickel Ore: A Review

Abstract

Nickel is a strategically important metal. Nickel was used much earlier before it was scientifically discovered in 1751 by a Swedish scientist Cronstedt. Nickel is the 24th most abundant element in the Earth's crust, comprising about 3 % of the composition of the earth. It is the 5th most abundant element by weight after iron, oxygen, magnesium and silicon (Cempel and Nickel 2006). The wide applications of nickel in anti-corrosion materials manufacturing, stainless steel and alloy steel production, chemical industries, electrical and electronic equipment, etc. require vast sources of nickel. Sulphidic and lateritic (oxidic) are the two principal types of nickel deposits present in the world.Laterites are oxidic ores extensively found in tropical regions of the world. They were formed by the laterisation process of ultramafic rocks. Laterites are the weathering products of the ultramafic rocks in the earth crust (Le et al. 2006). The warm climate and abundant rainfalls are the favourable environmental conditions for formation of laterites. Lateritic deposits are broadly classified into limonite and saprolite types. Limonites or the oxidic laterites are highly enriched with iron oxides; however, the saprolites are silicate-dominated lateritic minerals (Chang et al. 2010). Majority of the laterites found on the surface of earth crust are limonite [(Fe, Ni) (Simate et al. 2010;Golightly 1981).Lateritic nickel deposits contribute about 80 % of the land-based nickel reserves of the world. However, only 40 % of global nickel is produced from laterites (Valix and Loon 2003). The underutilisation of the vast resources may be attributed to higher processing cost (Thomas 1995). Presently, most of the global nickel

Development of Bioleaching for Extraction of Metal Values from Low-Grade Ores and Wastes

“…The low content REEs is a challenge for the research community to recover. Different hydrometallurgical techniques including BL have great potential for the recovery of REEs in a low-cost and eco-friendly way [24][25][26][27].…”