Recycling of electric arc furnace (EAF) dust for use in steel making process

Abstract

The EAF dust is listed as hazardous waste from specific source, K061, according to ABNT 10004:2004 and constitutes one of the major problems of electrical steel plant. This work suggests recycling of the EAF dust by sintering of a composite, pre-cast agglomerate (PCA) consisting of EAF dust agglomerate to coke particles, mill scale and ceramic fluorite into pellets. The work was divided into three stages, in the first stage the technical viability of using only solid waste industrial to produce a PCA was observed, in the second phase, the main effects between the components of the PCA to obtain the optimal formulation was tested. In the third phase the intensity of the variables, coke and fluorite ceramics, for removing zinc of PCA was checked. Every stage was chemically analyzed by X-ray fluorescence spectrometer and X-ray diffraction. The first two stages of the production PCA were carried out in a pilot plant sintering downstream and the third phase in a pilot plant upstream. As a result of the process two by-products were obtained, the pre-cast agglomerated, PCA, with total iron content exceeding 70%, object of the process of sintering and zinc dust, containing more than 50% zinc resulting from volatilization of this metal during the sintering process and collected by bag filter. In addition, approximately 90% of lead and cadmium contained in the initial EAF dust was extracted.