Recovery of zinc as zinc phosphate and by-products from hydrometallurgical

treatment of hot-dip galvanizin (Zn-Al) dross

Valentina Bermúdez Gómez

The article was written in 2021 by some Indian researchers who say in the text that
the world production of zinc is influenced by 70-80% thanks to the steel market and
this is because zinc is what they use the most for galvanizing steel. , but more than
11% is lost in this process when the slag is formed, so they also speak of the
possibility of recycling zinc in secondary waste; This is why the article seemed
interesting to me and the topic of the use and processing of metals for the benefit
of human beings for each of their important daily activities. I don't know much
about what other procedures can be carried out with zinc, but I did understand that
it is very important for galvanizing steel.
The researchers also talk about how to give it a second use or, promoting the
recycling of zinc, because studies show that the slag that this material produces
contains 95% zinc, having high and viable recycling possibilities, in the article they
talk that it can be recovered by hydrometallurgical means but that it could be
obtained in either of the two ways, by pyrometallurgy or as they work on in the
article, by hydrometallurgy basically because it is much more friendly to the
environment.
I personally have a doubt because they say that the objective is to avoid
pulverizing the slag, but to recover it through leaching, precipitation and
crystallization, and I have heard something at CIMEX that these processes are
carried out at high temperatures, so for me They would be talking about
pyrometallurgical processes, but that is what is not completely clear to me.
What they did for the development of the investigation and the elaboration of the
article was that they evaluated a sample of zinc slag and saw that it contained 94%
zinc, 6% aluminum, and 0.001% iron, they carried out the leaching with sulfuric
acid with 8% concentration but they did it at room temperature (because I know it
can also be done in an oven) and during the next 8 hours they did pH and
temperature controls and then if they dried it at 100°, I would think that Now yes, in
a furnace, after being leached, they precipitated Al as Al(OH)2 using 50% NaOH,
which was heated in order to obtain alumina, and when removing the Al, zinc
precipitated as zinc phosphate.