Alkaline leaching of zinc from electric arc furnace steel dust

Electric arc furnaces (EAF) generate about 10–20 kg of dust per metric ton of steel, which constitute a hazardous waste, known as EAF dust. This dust contains a remarkable amount of non-ferrous metals, which include zinc, cadmium, lead, chromium and nickel that could be recovered, reducing the environmental impact of the leachable toxic metals, and generating revenue. In this paper, different alkaline leaching techniques were tested in order to dissolve the zinc present in an EAF dust: (i) conventional agitation leaching; (ii) pressure leaching; (iii) conventional leaching following a microwave pretreatment and (iv) leaching with agitation provided by an ultra-sonic probe. Temperature and sodium hydroxide concentration were the variables tested. The highest zinc recovery from the EAF dust, containing about 12% of zinc, was about 74%. This was achieved after 4 h of leaching in a temperature of 90 °C and with a sodium hydroxide concentration of 6 M of the leaching agent.