Recovery of molybdenum as an additional value of steel making dust processing

Important results from the project

The purpose of this activity was to develop of hydrometallurgical process for selective recovery of molybdenum. Characterization of new samples, determination of optimal conditions for selective leaching and solvent extraction was performed. All tasks were successively fulfilled. Leaching process led to the Mo recovery with the efficiency of 90% while only 10% of Zn was co-leached. In the solvent extraction process Mo was extracted separately from Zn. Empirical modeling was applied to determine industrial parameters by designing the McCabe-Thiele diagrams.

Expected long term effects

This research led to the development of the hydrometallurgical processing for Mo recovery, and it add the value to the recycling of steel making dust. Process is capable of selective recovery of Mo, which is considered to be critical element for heavy metal industry since there are limited Mo supplies affected by environmental restrictions for Mo production. Utilization of domestic sources in the form of by-products can decrease the dependence on Mo import and supports the sustainability in the metallurgical industry.

Approach and implementation

Pre-project was divided into of three tasks. The first task was characterization of the samples obtained from steel producers to determine the content of refractory metals. In the second task possibilities to selectively leached molybdenum were studied. It was determined that Mo can be leached at lower concentrations of the reagent and it reaches high efficiencies at ambient temperature, which will decrease operational cost for the processing. Subsequently Mo was recovered using solvent extraction techniques.