Nickel In A Period Of Change

Some years from now, perusal of the unfolding saga of the nickel family will show that the year 1968 was the herald of change-both in the geography of its endeavors and in its technology. No one should doubt any longer that oxide ores of nickel have come of lusty age-their heavyweight stature in the Caribbean area and in the Western Pacific can be shrunk only by immersion in the politics of unhappiness. The sulfide branch of the family has been augmented afar off by substantial ore deposits in western Australia-right across the globe from Sudbury-and in southern Africa, 9000 miles from the nickel hub. The Foreword of the 1961 AIME volume, dealing with the extractive metallurgy of copper and nickel, noted that "the dead hands of nitrogen" had been lifted from oxidation reactions utilizing air and that the industry was on the threshold of under- standing this fact. Here, at least, nonferrous industry had led its ferrous counterpart in the commercial use of tonnage oxygen in liquid phase pyrometallurgy-the reference is to oxygen flash smelting. Today large oxygen-producing plants are blossoming everywhere and the fruits which will follow are many and varied. Among them is Inco's forthcoming use of the top-blown oxygen converter for sulfide melts. The bell tolls for those "pyro- metallurgical dinosaurs" which still stalk smelter aisles the world around. Silicate oxide nickel ores will rejoice in the glow of modern elevated temperature chemical metallurgy in its various manifestations, vindicating the bulldog spirit of that ancient of clans, the hot metal men-including the renovator of Le Nickel's Doniambo Works.