Chemical, mineralogical and morphological characterisation of basic oxygen furnace dust

Abstract

The occurrence and recovery of metallurgical wastes from steelmaking and ironmaking processes is nowadays a great problem, mainly because of their large amount and environmental pollution caused by heavy metals. Elements, such as Fe and Zn, which are important to the industries, are the main ones in basic oxygen furnace (BOF) dust. Because of their presence, it becomes very important to know how these elements are combined before studying new technologies for their processing. The aim of this work was to carry out chemical, physical, structural and morphological characterisation of the BOF dust. The investigation was carried out by using granulometric analysis, chemical analysis, SEM, EDAX, XRD and Mossbauer spectroscopy. These findings deepened our understanding of zinc speciation present in zinc-containing steelmaking wastes.