Some Observations on the Processing of the Polymetallic Sea nodules at the National Metallurgical Laboratory

There is now doubt that the deep sea bed nodules occuring in the oceans are the potential source of major metals of importance to mankind. So for as India is conc-erned, it has very small deposits of nickel, comparatively less of copper and no cobalt. The annual requirements of nickel and cobalt are met with large import of these metals involving heavy foreign exchange. Copper is also important to a certain extent as indigenous production is not able to meet the growing demand of this metal. So far as manganese is concerned, the present situation is that, limited resources of good grade manganese ores are avai-lable which can not sustain the ferro-manganese industry for long. Under the above circumstances alternate resou-rces of these metals are necessary for the major requi-rements of various industries. One of the major resource of the above metals is the polymetallic sea nodules from the Indian Ocean which is of great strategic impor-tance to India