Due to an increase in demand for nickel rich batteries to power electric vehicles, a top tier global resources company elected to build a plant to convert nickel in powder form into the extremely pure battery-grade nickel sulphate hexahydrate used in batteries. We were engaged to deliver the nickel sulphate crystalliser to the plant in Western Australia, which was designed to produce 100,000 tonnes per year of nickel sulphate hexahydrate at a purity of 99.95wt%.

The task involved careful consideration of the design to make sure the product met high purity battery-grade specifications. Our design incorporates the use of Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR), which is extremely energy-efficient compared to steam-driven systems. The crystalliser is a draft tube baffle (DTB) type, which produces large crystals, with an average diameter of 1 mm or more, as required by the market. The large crystals centrifuge efficiently, with minimised liquor entrainment, and several wash steps within the plant optimise the final product purity.

Our team worked closely with the client to develop a solution which not only met their process objectives but was also easy to install. To minimise the site installation work, we provided a modular plant complete with structural steel, fully mounted process equipment, piping, instrumentation, and wiring to local junction boxes.

The crystalliser plant was commissioned in 2021 and is now successfully in operation.