Nickel dissolution from nickel matte into the aqueous sulfuric acid solutions

In present work, an experiment to dissolve nickel from the nickel matte into the aqueous sulfuric acid solutions has been carried out at the laboratory scale experiments. The nickel matte used in experiment has a composition of 73% nickel and 20% sulfur. The experiment was carried out using a Rotating disk system and the variables for experiments were covering agitation speed from 100 rpm to 400 rpm, dissolution temperature from 60 ° C to 90 ° C, the sulfuric acid concentrations were varied from 5% to 20% and the dissolution time from 0 minutes to 120 minutes. The effect of those variables was observed on the solubility of nickel from nickel matte. The experimental results show that the dissolution of nickel from the nickel matte into the aqueous sulfuric acid solution increase if the agitation speed, temperature and dissolution time were increased. At 15% sulfuric acid concentration, agitation speed 400 rpm and dissolution time 120 minutes, an increase in dissolution temperature from 60 ° C to 90 ° C causes the amount of dissolved nickel at 90 ° C are 3 times higher than the amount of dissolved nickel at 60 ° C.