Electric Metals Limited with Philippine-based partner Grand Terra Mining Resources Inc. (GTMRI) built a mineral processing demonstration plant for the production of nickel and cobalt as hydroxide product. The plant is located at the Leyte Industrial Development Estate (LIDE) in Isabel, Leyte. GTMRI is a registered Ecozone Export Enterprise company.
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Grand Terra Mining Resources Inc. (GTMRI) has successfully produced the first nickel metal from Philippines laterite ores at its demonstration leach plant in Leyte. The President of GTMRI, Leoben Evangelista said, “This is a great achievement for the Philippines. The innovative vat leaching system and the use of resins to purify solutions followed by electrowinning to produce LME quality nickel metal is a first for the Philippines. It just goes to show that local processing of laterite ores is possible”.
GTMRI, in conjunction with Electric Metals Limited, has been jointly working on its innovative vat leach process in Leyte since 2021. The demonstration plant is located in the Leyte Industrial Development Estate (LIDE) at Isabel Leyte, next to the Pasar Copper Smelter and Philippine Phosphate Fertilizer Corporation. GTMRI is a PEZA (Philippine Economic Zone Authority) registered company.
Laterite ore from numerous mines around the Philippines have been tested and leached at the demonstration plant. Leaching of the laterite ore takes place in atmospheric conditions (i.e. no high temperature autoclaves) in concrete vats. Weak acidic solutions are used in the leaching process. The resultant leach solutions containing nickel & cobalt together with other minor elements are separated and purified with selective ion resins. Separate nickel & cobalt solutions can be prepared using resins.
Pure nickel metal sheet and of London Metal Exchange Quality, produced by Electric Metals Limited [Photo by: George Bujtor]
From the nickel rich solution, the GTMRI team then used an EMEW cell to produce pure nickel metal using ‘Electrowinning’ which is a form of ‘Electrolysis’. During the electrowinning process, nickel ions are “pulled” out of solution and deposited on a starter sheet (stainless-steel or titanium) as current is passed through the solution.
The photograph above shows the nickel metal sheet produced. The pure nickel metal sheet is sitting on top of the titanium starter sheet. The nickel metal is >99.8% Ni and of London Metal Exchange (LME) quality. This sample of nickel metal was produced from solutions over a period of less than one hour.
The bench scale set at Leyte is like the image below. The EMEW cell is a cylindrical tube comprising a metal cathode and a central anode. The System is a closed system:
Solutions containing nickel are pumped through each cell and nickel metal deposits on the outer starter sheet which is the cathode. The anode is at the centre of each cell and is composed of mixed metal oxides. Over time, nickel builds up on the starter sheet and then “harvested”/recovered as hollow cylinders of pure metal.
The benefits of the EMEW system include-
(a) zero emissions or misting. This is very different to traditional nickel or copper electrolysis where the cells are open, and acid misting can be an issue
(b) better current distribution and higher purity metal deposition
(c) easily controlled solution flows and suitable for small volume and high value recovery
(d) can recover metals from low concentration solutions, even waste streams.
Leoben Evangelista commented “the leach solutions coming from the vats can be used to produce any of- or a mix of- MHP (Mixed Hydroxide Product), separate NHP (Nickel Hydroxide Product) & CHP (Cobalt Hydroxide Product) or Nickel metal. Nickel metal is sold at 100% of the prevailing LME nickel price whereas MHP sells for approx. 80% to 85% of the LME nickel price and NHP sells for approx. 90% of the LME nickel price. The flexibility is in the system that GTMRI uses”.
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Photo credit: George Bujtor and Darwin Manalo of Electric Metals Pte Ltd - https://www.electricmetals.co/home
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