The Recycling of Heavy-metal-containing Wastes: Mass Balances and Economical Estimations

As environmental legislation has become stricter in recent decades, efforts for treating residues have also increased. The existing pyrometallurgical reprocessing methods for metal-containing wastes recover mainly only one valuable metal or produce low-grade byproducts. The aim of developing an economic process has to be the simultaneous recovery of more than one valuable metal and increased product quality. In the case of zinc-containing residues the goal has to be a high-quality zinc product. Moreover, the target is a nearly zero waste process and, accordingly, small amounts of generated residues. In this paper four possible secondary raw materials are compared regarding their mass and energy balance for a treatment in a carbon-containing metal bath. Furthermore, an evaluation of the economy is given for a neutral leaching residue, Waelz kiln slag, dust from secondary copper industry as well as an electro arc furnace dust from carbon steel production.