RecoDust—An Efficient Way of Processing Steel Mill Dusts

RecoDust is believed to be an efficient way of processing steel mill dusts to produce reusable secondary raw material resources. The rising costs of the steel production process and the increasing public attention towards environmental protection have caused steel plants worldwide to focus on emission-reduction processes and circular economy. As a reusable secondary raw material resource, the steel mill dust contains a high amount of iron and zinc. Nowadays, most of the steel mill dusts are processed under the Waelz-Process. However, this process is limited or impossible without additional dust treatment and can only be operated economically with zinc contents over 20 wt%. In the future, RecoDust in combination with dry slag granulation will become an efficient technique for processing lower zinc-containing materials of a steel mill. A challenging area in the field of RecoDust is the melting/reduction phase to separate volatile components and the slag treatment. A previous study was limited to the recovery of zinc. This paper compares the energy consumptions of the primary metal production to the recycling and of the RecoDust process to the Waelz-Process and outlines a new approach to RecoDust slag treatment.