실제로 이동하는 것
Indonesia forbade the export of unprocessed nickel ore, forcing anyone who wanted the metal to build a plant on Indonesian soil. Within a decade the country went from an ore supplier to the dominant producer of processed nickel, and the upper limonite layer that used to be waste became battery feedstock.
- 소재
- Nickel
- 유형
- Limonite laterite, roughly 1.3% nickel, with recoverable cobalt
- 출발지
- Indonesia — Sulawesi and Halmahera
단계별, 국경별
Indonesia · Sulawesi 보유자 Indonesian miners and joint ventures (채굴업체)
Skimming the top of the profile
The limonite layer sits above the saprolite. It used to be stripped off and dumped to reach the higher-grade ore below; now it is the product.
왜 이곳인가: Same weathering process as New Caledonia, different layer of the same profile.
Indonesia · HPAL plant, Morowali or Obi 보유자 Plant operators (화학)
Dissolving it under pressure
Slurried ore goes into an autoclave with sulfuric acid at about 250 °C and 40 bar. Nickel and cobalt dissolve; iron stays behind as a residue.
나머지는 어떻게 되었는가: The acid is made on site from sulfur, most of it imported. A nickel plant is quietly also a very large chemical plant.
왜 이곳인가: Because the ore export ban means it has to be. This industry exists in Indonesia by policy as much as by geology.
Indonesia · Same complex 보유자 Plant operators (화학)
Precipitating a shippable intermediate
Nickel and cobalt are precipitated together as mixed hydroxide precipitate — MHP — a green-grey filter cake that is compact enough to ship economically.
왜 이곳인가: MHP exists purely to solve a freight problem: you cannot ship a tank of pregnant leach solution across an ocean.
China · Chinese refineries 보유자 Refiners (정련업체)
To a refinery
MHP is containerised and shipped to be redissolved and separated into individual metal salts.
왜 이곳인가: Sulfate refining and cathode precursor manufacture are co-located; the intermediate goes to where both already exist.
China · Precursor and cathode plants 보유자 Chemical and cathode makers (제조사)
Sulfate, precursor, cathode
Redissolved and crystallised into nickel sulfate and cobalt sulfate, co-precipitated with manganese into a mixed hydroxide precursor, then lithiated and calcined into cathode powder.
왜 이곳인가: Precursor chemistry is the least visible and most concentrated step in the entire battery chain.
China · Cell and vehicle plants 보유자 Battery and vehicle manufacturers (제조사)
Roughly 220 electric cars
At around 50 kg of nickel per high-nickel pack, 11 tonnes of contained nickel is on the order of two hundred cars.
왜 이곳인가: From a hillside in Sulawesi to a car park, in about five months.
이것은 작업 예시이다. 공표된 출발 수량을 공표된 일반적인 수율 및 회수율에 따라 추적한 것이므로 비율은 검증 가능하다. 특정 선적 기록이 아니다. 경로 사실—어느 나라, 어떤 공정, 그리고 왜 해당 소재를 다른 곳에서 처리할 수 없는지—은 공개 보고를 바탕으로 정리되었다.