实际流转的物质
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.
- 材料
- Nickel
- 品种
- Limonite laterite, roughly 1.3% nickel, with recoverable cobalt
- 起点
- Indonesia — Sulawesi and Halmahera
逐步追踪，逐境跨越
Indonesia · Sulawesi 持有方 Indonesian miners and joint ventures (矿业公司)
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.
为何选择此地: Same weathering process as New Caledonia, different layer of the same profile.
Indonesia · HPAL plant, Morowali or Obi 持有方 Plant operators (化学品)
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.
其余部分的去向: The acid is made on site from sulfur, most of it imported. A nickel plant is quietly also a very large chemical plant.
为何选择此地: 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 持有方 Plant operators (化学品)
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.
为何选择此地: MHP exists purely to solve a freight problem: you cannot ship a tank of pregnant leach solution across an ocean.
China · Chinese refineries 持有方 Refiners (精炼商)
To a refinery
MHP is containerised and shipped to be redissolved and separated into individual metal salts.
为何选择此地: Sulfate refining and cathode precursor manufacture are co-located; the intermediate goes to where both already exist.
China · Precursor and cathode plants 持有方 Chemical and cathode makers (制造商)
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.
为何选择此地: Precursor chemistry is the least visible and most concentrated step in the entire battery chain.
China · Cell and vehicle plants 持有方 Battery and vehicle manufacturers (制造商)
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.
为何选择此地: From a hillside in Sulawesi to a car park, in about five months.
本文为示例演算，以公开的典型产率和回收率对既定起始量逐步推算，各比例可供核验；这不是某批具体货物的记录。路线事实——途经哪些国家、经历哪些工序，以及为何该材料不能在其他地方简单处理——均来源于公开报道。