Optimized Slag Design for Maximum Metal Recovery during the Pyrometallurgical Processing of Polymetallic Deep-Sea Nodules

The steadily growing demand for critical metals and their price increase on the world market makes the mining of marine mineral resources in the not too distant future probable. Therefore, an enormous focus lays currently on the development of a viable process route to extract valuable metals from marine mineral resources such as polymetallic nodules. For a country with few natural resources like Germany, the industrial treatment of marine mineral resources could lead to a significantly decreased dependence on the global natural resource market. The focus during treatment of these nodules lies on the pyrometallurgical extraction of Ni, Cu and Co on one hand as well as the generation of a sellable ferromanganese and/or silicomanganese product on the other. All work is conducted in lab-scale SAF furnaces. The concept approach is zero-waste, which includes careful slag design, so that the produced slags adhere to environmental restrictions.