Increasing purity of ammonium nickel sulfate hexahydrate and production sustainability in a nickel phytomining process

摘要

Phytomining, now called agromining, consists of growing hyperaccumulator plants in order to farm metals and recover them from the biomass. This technology enables us to extract metals from secondary resources (e.g. metal containing-soils, mineral wastes, polluted soils) and manufacture high-value products. It has proved feasible for nickel, since more than 400 hyperaccumulators have been identified worldwide, able to accumulate at least 1% Ni in their tissues. Moreover, Ni is a target metal with a relatively high economic value.