Laboratory Testing & General Mineral Processing Engineering

Laboratory Testing & General Mineral Processing Engineering

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Extract metals from steel slags (5 replies and 1 comment)

A
Aliarsen
7 years ago
Aliarsen 7 years ago

I'd like to know which way will be ok to extract metals from steel slags

Leaching or flotation or xYz?

Which one is more suitable whereas some elements like Si and Al extract lower

Here is the composition of steel slag:

SiO2 18%-Al2O3 4%- CaO 32%- MgO 9%- FeO 32%- MnO 0.4%- P2O5 1%- TiO2 1%- V2O5 1.7%.

And the best extraction for me include Fe, Ca, Mg,P, and Mn without Si, Al, Ti, and V.

M
BAUD
7 years ago
BAUD 7 years ago

All the steel slags are not the same. I suggest you share with the group at the minimum the composition of the steel slags, the granulometry, the stock or the monthly production of the slags, the metals with a potential monetary value for you. 

A
Aliarsen
7 years ago

Here is the composition of steel slag:

SiO2 18%-Al2O3 4%- CaO 32%- MgO 9%- FeO 32%- MnO 0.4%- P2O5 1%- TiO2 1%- V2O5 1.7%.

And size distribution of slag is 70-200 micron

And the best extraction for me include Fe, Ca, Mg,P, and Mn without Si, Al, Ti, and V.

r
RayMartin
7 years ago
RayMartin 7 years ago

The typical method is by magnetic separation.  This should capture the steel.  A secondary method would be gravity separation - for instance a jig or spiral - where you can take advantage of differences in specific gravity of the components

M
BAUD
7 years ago
BAUD 7 years ago

Please, note the following:

  • The level of the FeO content shows that this slag is not from blast furnaces, but from steelmaking furnaces (converters, electric arc furnaces);
  • The steelmaking slags are generally used as materials for civil engineering works, fertilizers, soil improvement, raw materials for cement clinker;
  • According to an american university, there are no proven, commercially viable results, available from these steel slags metals extraction initiatives;
  • It is recommended to lay out a cost-profit analysis before conducting expensive metals recovery from steelmaking slags.

This being said, I suggest a slag processing, followed by

-a leach,

-a purification of the electrolyte by selective precipitation of other metals,

-extraction of the first valuable metal,

-dissolve separately each precipitate and

-extraction of the remaining valuable metals separately.

 

 

P
Peter J
7 years ago
Peter J 7 years ago
1 like by David

One of the most important factors when considering recovery from a slag is to try and arrange for the slag to cool as slowly as possible.  This will allow the recoverable minerals to segregate and make them easier to recover, whichever method is selected.

A
AJNeale
7 years ago
AJNeale 7 years ago
1 like by David

Hi Aliarsen - as you can see from the comments above, the group has provided you with a lot of yellow warning lights on spending a lot of time or money evaluating options to recover value out of steelmaking slags.  Your analysis shows that Fe, Si, Al, Ca & Mg are the main components, although I'm not sure they would all be present as a pure oxide form.  Most of these elements have very little commercial value, hence the use of slags as a low-cost replacement for sands or gravels in civil works.  Baud hits the nail on the head - look at the gross value of the metals with reasonable value in the slag (which in this case is V and possibly Ti) and see if it makes any sense to do anything with it.  A research group at the University of Alberta spent years looking at recovering V from oil-sands fly ash, and to-date, I don't believe any commercially viable process has been developed.  There have been commercial operations recovery V from petrochemical cokes using an ammonium leach, but that was a very specific process developed for a very specific waste product.  Just remember, every step of your process, check if you can make money with your process, if you can't, it might be a great technical success, but it won't ever be a great commercial success.  Best Regards - Andrew

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