Zinc leaching from electric arc furnace dust in alkaline medium

Physical and chemical properties of electric arc furnace (EAF) dust from Tianjin seamless Pipe Company were measured and analyzed. The zinc leaching tests in alkaline medium were carried out under variation of leaching agent concentration, leaching temperature, leaching cumulative time and solid-to-liquid ratio. The thermodynamics and kinetics of the zinc leaching process were also analyzed. The results show that the EAF dust contains 10% (mass fraction) zinc and the median particle size is 0.69 μm. The zinc recovery of 73.4% is obtained under the condition of 90 °C, 6 mol/L NaOH, and 60 min leaching time. With the increase of concentration of NaOH and the cumulative time, zinc leaching will be significantly increased. The kinetics study demonstrates that the leaching reaction is chemically controlled and the reaction activation energy is 15.73 kJ/mol.