Nickel Recovery

Ion Exchange Technique for Nickel Recovery from Laterite-nickel Resource

Nickel, a silver-white, hard, ductile and ferromagnetic metal element that is highly polished and resistant to corrosion. Nickel is a pro-iron element, so nickel-based minerals are mostly laterite nickel ore.



Nickel is often used for electroplating because of its good corrosion resistance. In recent years, nickel sulfate has been used as a ternary positive electrode material and has received much attention.

Nickel demand is increasing year by year, China will become the world's largest nickel consumer, but China's nickel mines are mostly low-grade mines, which are difficult to mine and costly.

The traditional method of Ni recovery is by extraction. Pretreatment by precipitating Fe3+ is needed before extraction. During the precipitation, around 10% Nickel would enter into the residues and are very hard to recover. On the other hand Saponification of the extractant will consume NaoH.

Sunresin has developed Special Nickel-selective chelating resin, which is designed for extracting nickel from laterite-nickel resource.

As the first and the only A-share listed company in Chinese ion exchange and adsorption resin industry, Sunresin is one of the few integrated purification solutions providers in China. Sunresin has successfully established the first high-purity nickel production line in China .

Our Technology Advantages

• Special Nickel chelating resin
• Supporting Equipment & system
• Successful EPC project service

Special Chelating Resins for Nickel Extraction

SEPLITE® LSC773 Resin has high selectivity to Ni and is not affected by Fe in solution. Therefore no pretreatment is needed which decreases the loss of Ni. To regenerate LSC773, sulfuric acid was used, no-saponification process therefore decreases the alkali consumption. The most important is that selectivity of resins to Ni being over 98%, which significantly decreased Nickel production cost.