Nickel is a kind of non-ferrous metal, it can form alloys with many metal elements, stainless steel, nickel-based alloys and other materials. When the nickel content exceeds 3%, nickel can be directly smelted and used in the production of various materials. However, when the nickel content is less than 3%, the ore needs to be sorted and purified through the beneficiation process and the supporting beneficiation equipment before it can be smelted. Depending on the composition of nickel ore, the selected process methods are also different. However, the basic flow of each process is: crushing and screening - grinding and classification - separation - tailings treatment. So what nickel production equipment can be selected in the beneficiation process?

1.Nickel ore crushing and screening stage
The nickel crushing and screening stage often adopts a three-stage-one closed-circuit crushing and screening process. The raw ore is fed into the first-stage crushing from the feeding bin, and then enters the second-stage crushing after crushing, and is crushed to a certain particle size and sent to the screening machine by the belt conveyor. The oversized material is returned to the secondary crusher, while the undersized material enters the grinding process.

The main application equipment are: crusher, screening machine, belt conveyor and feeding bin.

Crushing machine: mainly jaw crusher and cone crusher, jaw crusher is generally used for first stage crushing, and cone crusher is used for second and third stage crushing.

Screening machine: circular vibrating screen and linear vibrating screen

2.Nickel ore grinding and classifying stage

Grinding and classifying generally adopts two-stage closed-circuit grinding operation. The crushed qualified materials are sent to the first stage ball mill by the conveyor. After grinding, the ore is classified, the overflow product is returned to the first stage for regrinding, and the underflow qualified material is sent to the second stage ball mill. After grinding, the pulp is classified into fine particles. After the classification, the qualified products enter the separation stage, and the overflow pulp is returned to the second-stage grinding for further grinding.

The main application equipment are: grid ball mill, overflow ball mill, spiral classifier, hydrocyclone

Grid type ball mill: It is mainly used for the rough grinding of one-stage grinding, and the grinding particle size range is 0.2~0.3mm.

Overflow type ball mill: It is mainly used for the fine grinding operation of the second-stage grinding, and the grinding particle size is less than 5~10μm.

Spiral classifier: in the first-stage grinding operation, it mainly cooperates with the grid ball mill to carry out the classification operation.

Hydrocyclone: In the second-stage grinding operation, it mainly cooperates with the overflow ball mill for classification.

3.Nickel ore separating stage

There are mainly flotation separation and gravity separation. According to the different properties of the ore, the ore separating processes are different.

Nickel ore flotation separation process
Flotation is mostly suitable for treating nickel sulfide ore containing silicate gangue or embedded nickel minerals with uneven granularity. According to the different properties of mineral, the common flotation separation process can be divided into two types: priority flotation and mixed flotation.

Priority flotation: the floating copper nickel suppression process is adopted. After grinding, the products are sent into the agitation tank, and the sulfide inhibitor and copper collector are added, and fully stirred into the for processing. The flotation foam products are copper concentrate and the tailings are nickel product. The tailings also needs to enter the next flotation stage, and the nickel concentrate is obtained by adding sulfide trap flotation.

Mixed flotation: after grinding, the ore slurry enters the mixing tank. After being fully mixed with the flotation agent, the copper and nickel mixed concentrate is first separated by the flotation process. The mixed concentrate is sent into the ball mill for stage grinding, so that the two minerals can be dissociated in a single step and in one step near, before entering the next step of flotation. Before the flotation, first send into the agitation tank, add agents that inhibit sulfation and catch copper agents, make it fully mixed, after the flotation of copper concentrate. The tailings in the flotation tank is nickel concentrate.

The main application of equipment is: flotation machine, agitation tank, flotation agent, pumping pump

Flotation machine: xcf flotation machine, jjf flotation machine, kyf flotation machine, xcf flotation machine, where jjf and sf flotation machine can form a joint unit, kyf, xcf flotation machine can form a joint unit.

Agitation tank: pharmaceutical mixing tank, efficient mixing tank and conventional mixing tank.

Concentration agents: mainly nickel sulfide traps and silicate inhibitors.

Nickel ore gravity separation process
Nickel ore gravity separation is generally used by dense medium beneficiation process, which is suitable for the treatment of iron-nickel-platinum copper-nickel ore minerals. Using the density difference between gangue and nickel sulfide ore, the ore slurry enters the heavy medium cyclone under the pressure of 0.05~0.20Mpa for separation. The underflow part is nickel sulfide mine, while the overflow part is silicate gangue mine.

The main application equipment : dense medium hydrocyclone

The above is the nickel sulfide mineral production process and production equipment. In the actual concentrator, the specific kind of equipment should be selected according to the nickel ore beneficiation process. Therefore, it is necessary to perform the beneficiation test first, design the reasonable nickel ore beneficiation process process, and then customize the reasonable beneficiation equipment, in order to effectively improve the nickel ore recovery rate, and obtain the ideal return on investment.