On account of the complex occurrence of valuable metals in a large amount of low-grade nickel sulfide ore, obstacles have been caused by using the existing metallurgical method. Therefore, we are reporting a new selective chlorination roasting and water leaching process to treat complex nickel sulfide ore. Anhydrous aluminum chloride was firstly used as the solid chlorination agent to sulfide ore. The chlorination mechanism for metals in nickel-copper sulfide ore were determined by thermodynamic calculation and experiment. The thermodynamic analysis showed that the predominant matter contributing to the chlorination of talc, lizardite, and magnetite were AlCl₃ (both solid or gas) and the generated HCl, however, the chlorination of metal sulfide (pentlandite, chalcopyrite, and pyrite) were mostly contributed by the generated Cl₂. The effect of roasting temperature, the roasting time, the mass ratio of AlCl₃ to the ore, the content of O₂ in the roasting atmosphere and the particle size of ore were investigated. The orthogonal experiments results showed that the optimal conditions of the chlorination roasting process were the roasting time of 3 h, the roasting temperature of 450°C, the mass ratio of AlCl₃ to ore of 1.5:1, the content of O₂ of 20%, and particle size of the ore of 96-80 μm, under this condition, an extraction rate of nickel, copper, iron, and magnesium of 91.6%, 88.5%, 28.4%, and 16.4% was obtained. The chlorination mechanism is that, in the chlorination roasting process, nickel and copper were transferred into their corresponding metal chlorides, while most of the iron and magnesium were transferred into ferric oxide and magnesia-alumina silicates, respectively. TAK (thermal analytic kinetics) were used to clarify the chlorination kinetics, the results showed that the apparent activation energy calculated from DSC data was 70.4 kJ·mol^-1, while calculated from TG data was 86.5 kJ·mol^-1 (average) by using the FWO method, one of the most probable mechanism function of the chlorination process was $G(\alpha )=0.8701[1-{(1-\alpha )}^{0.8701}]$(integral form) and $f(\alpha )={(1-\alpha )}^{1.8701}$(differential form). The chlorination selectivity for metals could give guidance to the extraction of metals (especially for valuable metals) either in nickel sulfide ore or other minerals with a complex metal occurrence.

由于大量的低品位硫化镍矿石中有价金属的复杂存在，使用现有的冶金方法已经造成了障碍。因此，我们报告了一种新的选择性氯化焙烧和水浸工艺，用于处理复杂的硫化镍矿石。首先使用无水氯化铝作为硫化矿石的固体氯化剂。通过热力学计算和实验确定了镍铜硫化矿中金属的氯化机理。热力学分析表明，滑石，蜥蜴石和磁铁矿氯化的主要物质为AlCl _3。（无论是固体还是气体）和生成的HCl，但是，金属硫化物（膨润土，黄铜矿和黄铁矿）的氯化主要是由生成的Cl _2引起的。研究了焙烧温度，焙烧时间，AlCl ₃与矿石的质量比，焙烧气氛中O ₂的含量以及矿石粒度的影响。正交试验结果表明，氯化焙烧过程的最佳条件为焙烧时间为3 h，焙烧温度为450℃，AlCl ₃与矿石的质量比为1.5：1，O ₂的含量。在此条件下，矿石的提取率为20％，矿石的粒径为96-80μm，镍，铜，铁和镁的提取率分别为91.6％，88.5％，28.4％和16.4％。氯化机理是，在氯化焙烧过程中，镍和铜被转移到其相应的金属氯化物中，而大多数铁和镁分别被转移到三氧化二铁和氧化镁铝硅酸盐中。用TAK（热分析动力学）阐明了氯化动力学，结果表明，根据DSC数据计算的表观活化能为70.4 kJ·mol ^-1，而根据TG数据计算的表观活化能为86.5 kJ·mol ^-1（平均值）。使用FWO方法，氯化过程中最可能的机理功能之一是$G（\alpha ）=0.8701[\mathrm{1个}--{（\mathrm{1个}--\alpha ）}^{0.8701}]$（整体形式）和 $F（\alpha ）={（\mathrm{1个}--\alpha ）}^{1.8701}$（微分形式）。对金属的氯化选择性可以为硫化镍矿石或其他具有复杂金属存在的矿物中的金属（特别是对于有价值的金属）的提取提供指导。