Method for smelting nickel oxide ore

摘要

Provided is a method for smelting nickel oxide ore by which, even if the size of lumps is small in a mixture of metal and slag obtained by reducing and heating pellets of nickel oxide ore, it is still possible to effectively separate the metal and slag and easily recover only the metal at a high recovery rate. A method for smelting nickel oxide ore according to the present invention uses pellets of nickel oxide ore and is characterized by comprising: a pellet production step S1 for producing pellets from nickel oxide ore; a reduction step S2 for heating the resulting pellets at a predetermined reduction temperature in a reduction furnace to obtain a mixture of iron-nickel alloy and slag; and a separation step S3 for separating out and recovering the iron-nickel alloy form the resulting mixture, the separation step S3 comprising the creation of pulverized matter by pulverizing the mixture so that at least the slag becomes smaller than 2 mm, and sorting the resulting pulverized matter with a magnetic force of 300 to 600 gauss.