Utilization of zinc-bearing waste materials for electrolytic zinc production

摘要

Hydrometallurgical processing of most problematic zinc-bearing wastes generated in the Czech Republic is described in this laboratory study. The proposed and verified technologies enable recovery of electrolytic zinc from steelmaking dust, zinc ash from hot-dip galvanizing and zinc galvanic sludges. The developed technologies are based on acid leaching of the wastes processed, purification of leach liquors using simple precipitation procedures and preparing sulphate electrolytes suitable for the subsequent zinc electrolysis. Only processing of zinc galvanic sludge with increased copper and nickel content required leaching the sludge in caustic medium and zinc caustic electrowinning. The experiments performed provided all necessary data for introducing these technologies into the industry.