Considerations about the recycling of EAF flue dusts as source for the recovery of valuable metals by hydrometallurgical processes

Abstract

The present work takes an EAF flue dust to research its possibilities as resource from which to recover valuable base metals, principally zinc, by means of hydrometallurgical processes. At the same time this approach renders a recycle of the flue dust and thus decreases its environmental impact. The EAF flue dust is leached by different leaching reagents: acid, basic and complexing, and from the different pregnant solutions several approaches were proposed to obtain the most valuable metals contained in it. These approaches included the application of solvent extraction and other hydrometallurgical techniques.