PROCESS FOR THE RECOVERY OF NICKEL, COBALT AND MANGANESE FROM THEIR OXIDES AND SILICATES

摘要

A process for the recovery of nickel, cobalt or manganese from their oxides or silicates wherein such process, which requires the application of heat, is improved by utilizing microwave energy as the source of heat. The microwave energy may be utilized to cause the reduction of these values enabling such reduced values to then be recovered by conventional leaching processes. The microwave energy may also be used in conjunction with the chlorination of such values to produce their chlorides which are subsequently separated from the gangue and then processed by conventional means to obtain the metal values.