Innovative extraction and management of Vanadium from high vanadium iron concentrate and steel slags

Important results from the project

Vanadium is an economically important metal for EU. V is mainly used for production of high strength and special steels, and advanced alloys for aerospace application. V production in EU is highly dependent on import of the raw materials. At the same time there are large amount of unexploited V sources in EU member states. There are several ore deposits with around 1% V and large amount of steel slag with up to 3% V. This project seeks to develop technologies for economic and environmental friendly exploitation of these unused V sources in Europe.

Expected long term effects

wo process concepts, ´Reduction - Selective oxidation - Roasting - Leaching/Precipitation - Calcination - FeV making´ and ´Carbo-Oxychlorination Process´ have been developed for efficient extraction of V from primary and secondary resources. The developed roasting technology, leaching and precipitation recipes are implemented in MKOy flowsheet. This will improve the conditions to establish V production and thereby reduces the need for import of V feed-stock to EU. Using secondary materials reduces the environmental impacts associated to mine activities and creates jobs.

Approach and implementation

Route A from roasting to FeV production steps have been developed by extensive theoretical modelling, experiments in laboratory and semi-industrial scale. Concept of Route B has been carried out as a fundamental study including thermodynamic calculations and laboratory scale tests.