Recovery of Valuable Metals and Production of Fe-V Crude Alloy from Vanadium-Enriched Slag Using Aluminum Dross as a Reductant

The traditional aluminothermic reduction of vanadium-enriched slag using metallic Al as a reductant to produce Fe-V alloys causes high production costs and energy consumption. Aluminum dross as a solid waste with strong reducibility is a cost-effective and carbon-free secondary resource. In the present work, an efficient and sustainable recycling method is proposed to recover valuable metals and produce Fe-V crude alloy from vanadium-enriched slag using aluminum dross as a reductant. The influence mechanism of temperature, slag basicity, and reductant dosage on metal recovery during the novel aluminothermic reduction was investigated. The results demonstrated that metal recovery ratios of Fe, Cr, Mn, and V approached the maximum values of 95.6%, 84.2%, 87.9%, and 91.8%, respectively, at a temperature of 1873 K, slag basicity of 1.5, and a mass ratio of aluminum dross to vanadium-enriched slag of 0.44. An alloy with 28.18 wt.% Fe, 6.34 wt.% Cr, 30.47 wt.% Mn, and 35.01 wt.% V content was produced, and the mass ratio of V/Fe in the obtained Fe-V crude alloy product approached 1.24. The novel aluminothermic reduction showed many sustainable and economic benefits, including no carbon gas emission, rapid consumption of secondary resource aluminum dross, and widely-used alloy product.