IMPROVEMENTS IN OBTAINING NICKEL AND COBALT
Year: 1851

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, IIENRY
HUSSEY VIVIAN, of Singleton, in the County of Glamorgan, Esquire, send
greeting.
WHEREAS Her present most Excellent Majesty Queen Victoria, by Her.
Royal Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fourth day of No-
vember, One thousand eight hundred and fifty-one, in the fifteenth year of
Her reign, did, for Herself, Her heirs and successors, give and grant unto
me, the said Henry Hussey Vivian, my exors, adñiors, and assigns, Her
especial licence, full power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said
Henry Hussey Vivian, my exors, adññiors, and assigns, or such others as I,
the said Henry Hussey Vivian, my exors, admors, or assigns, should at any
time agree with, and no others, from time to time and at all times during
the term of years therein expressed, should and lawfully might make, use,
exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and the Town of Berwick-upon-
Tweed, in the Islands of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, and Man, and in all
Her Majesty's Colonies and Plantations abroad, the Invention of "IMPROVEMENTS
IN OBTAINING NICKEL AND COBALT," communicated to me by a foreigner residing
abroad; in which said Letters Patent is contained a proviso, that I, the said
Henry Hussey Vivian, shall cause a particular description of the nature of the
said Invention, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, by an
instrument in writing under my hand and seal, to be inrolled in Her
Majesty's High Court of Chancery, within six calendar months next and

page_text: immediately after the date of the said in part recited Letters Patent, as in and
by the same, reference being thereunto had, will more fully and at large
appear.
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, I, the said
Henry Hussey Vivian, do hereby declare that the nature of the said Inven-
tion, and the manner in which the same is to be performed, are fully described
and ascertained in and by the following statement thereof, that is to say:-
I have found that nickel and cobalt in quantities of considerable value are
contained in copper ores either the produce of foreign countries or of England,
and that in the treatment of such ores for copper in this country these metals
have up to this time been wasted, a portion of them remaining in the refined
copper and deteriorating its quality, another portion being thrown away in the
slags, another portion being contained in a product called white or hard metal
commonly used in the manufacture of nails or sold at an inferior price. The
object I have in view is the separation of the above-named valuable metals,
and the obtaining them in a marketable form. The Invention consists in the
separation of nickel and cobalt, or either of them, in the form of arsenurets
from ores, slags, regulus, and other combinations or alloys of copper, which
I effect by means of the affinity of nickel and cobalt for arsenic, and of copper
for sulphur. I now proceed to describe the means by which I carry this into
effect, which description it will be convenient to separate into two divisions
or steps.
By the process included in the first division I obtain an impure arsenical
compound containing nickel and cobalt, separated from the mass of matter
with which they were at first associated.
By the second process I obtain the arsenurets of nickel and cobalt in a
'marketable state.
.
As to the first division. Although I arrive in all cases at a like result, yet
the different characters of the materials which contain nickel and cobalt
render it necessary that different means should be used according to the
material operated on. And in order to make this the inore clear, I will
divide the substances operated upon into four classes.
First, ores, slags, and other compounds containing copper and other metals,
As to this
the whole or chief part of which are in an oxidized state.
class of materials, 1 mix the material to be treated with arsenical pyrites
containing sufficient arsenic to absorb the whole or nearly the whole of
the nickel and cobalt, together with a portion of copper contained in
the material, and at the same time I add in the form hereafter men-
tioned sufficient sulphur to take up the remainder of the copper together

page_text: may
with coal or carbonaceous matter for the more complete reduction of the
oxides, I then melt this mixture and tap the melted mass into a bed (after
skimming off the slag in the usual manner), the arseniccal portion sinks to the
bottom of the pigs, and is readily separated when cool from the superincum-
bent regulus of copper. The arsenical combination thus obtained will be.
found to contain nearly the whole of the nickel and cobalt present in the
material treated, and I proceed to deal with it by the second step. It
happen that the whole of the arsenical combination has not separated itself
from the regulus of copper in the first melting. In this case I remelt the
regulus once or twice, and tap it in the same way until the arsenical deposit
is exhausted. In the above process I have used and prefer arsenical pyrites
as a suitable substance for introducing arsenic; sulphur may be given by the
addition of iron pyrites or raw ore furnace metal, either of which I have
found to answer the
purpose well.
Arsenic and sulphur in their elementary
state I do not recommend for reasons which will be obvious to the practical
metallurgist. To define the exact proportion in which arsenic, sulphur, and
coal should be added is impossible, from the varying contents of the materials
to be treated; as to copper, nickel, cobalt, and other matters, I have found
that in treating an oxide of copper, produced by calcining regulus of copper
of 70%, the addition of eight cwt. of arsenical pyrites, twelve cwt. of raw ore
furnace metal of about 30%, sulphur and two ewt. of coal to twenty cwt. of
the oxide extracted, nearly the whole nickel and cobalt contained in the oxide
and concentrated them in the arsenical product as required. In treating
other products of this first class such proportions of sulphur in whatever form
used should be employed as will convert the copper into a regulus of between
fifty and sixty-five per cent., having a character between those known as "red
metal" and "sparkle metal," and such proportions of arsenic in whatever form
used as will prevent the bottom from assuming a coppery appearance, con-
verting it entirely into a compound, which, when broken, will have a sharp
bright white fracture.
Second class. Copper ores and regulus containing small quantities of
nickel and cobalt, and in which the metals are not in an oxidised state. I
smelt these ores in the usual manner of smelting copper ores until they arrive
at a regulus of about 70%, commonly known as "white metal." I then roast
such regulus in the same way as would be done for the purpose of producing
a metallic bottom. On the completion of the first portion of the roasting
process, when the plug holes are to be closed, and prior to melting for
tapping, I add arsenical pyrites three to five cwt. of which to thirty cwt. of
regulus I have found to produce the desired effect. On tapping the furnace into

page_text: the ordinary sand bed, and lifting the pigs when cool, under the first three or
four pigs of regulus a metallic bottom will be found, in which the largest
portion of the nickel and cobalt contained in the regulus originally treated
will be concentrated. This metallic bottom will be found to be a low
arsenical compound, easily broken, and presenting a greyish fracture ap-
proaching that of cast iron, which I afterwards treat by the second step. In
the above process, even without the special addition of arsenic, from the
natural presence of that substance in most copper ores containing nickel and
cobalt, a certain concentration takes place in any metallic bottoms formed by
roasting but to an inconsiderable extent, unless ores should be purposely so
mixed as to cause the regulus to be highly arsenical. Should such occur, the
bottoms so obtained will be treated in the same way as the fourth class.
Third class. Copper ores or regulus containing large quantities of nickel and
cobalt, and in which the metals are not in an oxidized state. In these ores
there will generally be found a large portion of arsenic present. I melt such
ore in the usual manner of melting copper ore, but instead of allowing the
metallic products to run to water, in order to granulate for subsequent
calcination, I run them into pigs. It will then be found that at the bottom
of one or more of the first pigs of regulus a product of a different character
from the regulus will have been deposited, from its greater specific gravity,
which when broken will have a light white fracture, being an arsenical com-
bination of copper, nickel, cobalt, and other matters, being that product which
I desire to obtain by the first step and which I afterwards treat specially for
nickel and cobalt by the second step; this arsenical product will separate easily
from the superincumbent copper regulus, and will be found to contain the
greater portion of the nickel and cobalt originally present in the ore. Should
arsenic not have been present in considerable quantity in the ore, it may be
added in the form I have mentioned, and the same effect produced.
Fourth class. Cupreous alloys. In order to separate nickel and cobalt from
such alloys, I proceed on the same principle; viz, that of the production of
two combinations, the one a regulus of copper and other metals, with little or
no nickel and cobalt; the other an arsenical combination containing nearly
all the nickel and cobalt originally present, which I effect either by adding
the alloy I desire to treat in either of the above described processes, placing
it at the top of the charge of materials, when they are first put into the
furnace, or by first melting such metallic compound, in order to allow it to
run into water to granulate, and then mixing it with the materials containing
sulphur and arsenic, and proceeding precisely as in the case of materials
classed No. 1 in this description, but without the admixture of coal.

page_text: I now come to the second step or general division of the Invention, viz,
the obtaining the arsenurets of nickel and cobalt in a marketable form, which
I now proceed to describe.
By the processes herein-before described I have separated the greater pro-.
portion of the nickel and cobalt from the mass with which they were mixed,
and I have produced an arsenical product containing such nickel and cobalt
in proportion varying usually from 1 to 12%, according to the original:
contents of the same; in the materials treated the remaining constituent
parts of this arsenical product are generally from 15 to 50% of copper, together,
with iron, antimony, and other matters depending entirely on the contents of
the materials from which it has been produced; and the object of this second
step is the separation of such copper, iron, and other extraneous matters con-
tained in the above-mentioned arsenical product, and the consequent concen-
tration of the nickel and cobalt, so as to obtain a marketable product. I proceed
as follows: The impure arsenical compound is to be pulverized or granulated,:
and then calcined in the ordinary manner of calcining copper ores. After the
calcination, I proceed to melt the material, with the view of converting the
copper, zinc, and other matters into a regulus, the oxide of iron into a slag,:
and the nickel and cobalt into arsenurets; and for these purposes I add
sulphur, silica, and arsenic, and I am careful to add sufficient arsenic to:
absorb the whole of the nickel and cobalt, together with portions of the other
metals, rather than by want of arsenic to allow nickel and cobalt to be present.
in the copper regulus. For the purpose of adding sulphur, I have found
sulphate of barytes a very suitable material, inasmuch as it contains no iron
or other impurity, which might enter into combination with the arsenuret of
nickel, and in the event of using it or other sulphate, coal or other carbon-
aceous matter must be added; in order to introduce arsenic, I usually employ
by preference arsenical pyrites, which at the same time parts with its sulphur,
and assists in forming regulus of copper. In order to supply the silica, I use
common sand. I have used for these purposes, 12% of silica, 10% of arsenical
pyrites, 8% of barytes, to 70% of arsenical product, and one part of coal to
four parts of sulphate of pyrites. The products of this melting are, first,
regulus of copper, antimony, zinc, iron, lead, silver, and other such metals as
may have been present, as also a certain small portion of nickel and cobalt,
which may not have separated from it, being as it were held in suspense in it;
secondly, arsenurets of nickel and cobalt, together with portions of the other
metals which, as before stated, I prefer obtaining in this arsenical product,
rather than incur the risk of any notable portions of nickel and cobalt remain-
ing in the regulus for want of arsenic; thirdly, slag containing chiefly the iron

page_text: originally present in the material; the slag is skimmed off in the usual
manner, and the regulus and the arsenical product are tapped, and these sc-
parate in cooling, by their respective specific gravities. This regulus I melt
slowly and tap to a bed, where an arsenical product containing nickel and
cobalt will again be found under the first few pigs, for the first two or three
meltings, after which the regulus will be generally free from nickel and cobalt,
and may be treated for copper in the usual manner; and in case it should not
be quite free, a semi-arsenical bottom may be taken from it, as in the case
of ordinary copper regulus before described, which will free it from the last
portions of nickel and cobalt, or nearly so. The arsenical product obtained
by this second step will be found to be freed from the greatest portion
of its impurities, and will contain a largely increased per centage of nickel
and cobalt; but in case it should not be sufficiently pure to be marketable,
which will .commonly be the case, I again pulverize or granulate, calcine,
and melt it, and proceed to treat it precisely in the same manner until I
obtain an arsenuret of nickel and cobalt of the required purity.
I may here state that what I have described throughout as applicable to
nickel and cobalt is applicable to either of those metals, and although I have
given above, in the different stages, the materials which I prefer for supplying
arsenic, sulphur, and silica, I do not confine myself to the use of the
particular materials or proportions which I have given, as many others may be
employed.
In witness whereof, I, the said Henry Hussey Vivian, have hereunto set
my hand and seal, this Fourth day of May, in the year of our Lord
One thousand eight hundred and fifty-two.