Experimental study on solid state recovery of metallic resources from EAF dust

A new process to recover iron and zinc from electric arc furnace (EAF) dust in a solid state has been developed. It comprises three steps: (1) reduction of dust (<1000°C) using gas reductant with high H2 or CO content; (2) for the solid product of step (1), wet magnetic separation to separate Fe from gangue; and (3) for the condensed fumes collected in step (1), water washing to remove soluble compounds like KCl and enrich and recover the zinc oxide. The performance of this process indicates that four kinds of resources could be obtained, iron rich materials (TFe = 92·3%); enriched zinc-rich materials (ZnO = 83·7%); gangue produced in the wet magnetic separation, which can be used as a building material, and KCl solution. The process is greatly energy saving since it is carried out at low temperature so that sintering would not happen. This means that the iron can be separated directly by physical methods which avoid crushing and grinding.