Metallurgy and Processing of Marine Manganese Nodules

Abstract

This paper reviews the state of the art in processing and extraction of ocean floor manganese nodules. It briefly reviews the mining sites where the abundant rich nodules occur and also discusses the metal distribution in nodules in view of economical processing and extraction of these metal values. The paper discloses in a detailed manner the physical and chemical characteristics of nodules, including porosity, surface area, water content and the effect of temperature on crystal structure of major constituents of nodules. In the extraction aspect of nodules, the paper reviews two different extraction schemes revealed in the literature, namely hydrometallurgical treatment and pyrometallurgical treatment. The hydrometallurgical treatments include acid leaching, ammonia leaching, leaching with reducing agents and leaching after high temperature pre-treatments such as in sulfating rousting, while the pyrometallurgical processes include smelting, chlorination-vaporization and segregation. The paper also covers metal recovery processes from leach liquor. An economic survey of processing nodules has been made in terms of problems associated with metal-marketing, and impact of metal production from nodules on mineral industries.