Refining the Sudbury Nickel Ores

Library and Archives Canada: 35mm, 16mm.
"This film combines time-lapse photography, animation, and actuality footage to explain the refining of nickel by the electrolytic method at one of Inco's Ontario, Canada refineries, and by the carbonyl method at the Mond Nickel Company's refinery at Clydach, Wales near Swansea. Illustrating the former, footage shows nickel oxide sinter being charged into and melted in an oil-fired reverberating anods furnace; the slag skimmed; the sorting of elements by magnetic and heating methods; the nickel being cast in anode form and placed in electrolytic tanks; the production of pure nickel cathodes; and nickel in its marketable forms - shots, ingots, cathodes, and plates. The carbonyl process is shown both at laboratory scale, then in practice: the nickel oxide sinter is ground in a ball mill; charged into calciners and reducers; combined with carbon monoxide in volatizers; decomposed; and packed. Also included are sequences on a new pressure carbonyl process and on the recovery of iron, cobalt, copper and precious metals."