HYDROMETALLURGICAL RECYCLING OF METAL SLUDGE

The field of extractive metallurgy can be divided into two major branches, hydrcmetallurgy and pyrcmetallurgy. 

Unfortunately, pyrcmetallurgy has several distinct disadvantages. Greatest among these are the environmental concerns regarding air quality and the disposed, of potentially hazardous slags and residues. Further, pyrcmetallurgy has not been demonstrated to be particularly successful where the feed streams vary widely in chemical composition or where more than a few metals are to be extracted for ccmmercial application. 

Hie First World War resulted in American economic dominance in extracting metallurgy and refining also provided pyrcmetallurgy with a dominant market position over the competing hydnanetallurgical techniques. This was primarily due to America s abundant sources of cheap fossil fuels. 

Most of the techniques required for the successful recycling of F006 sludges had been fully developed by 1920. RECONTEK has applied those techniques to a growing market as an alternative to landfill disposal. 

The RECONTEK process relies an sulfate extraction and separation as the heart of its technology. Sulfuric acid was chosen as the extraction solvent for several reasons. Among those are  

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Rosenbaum, S.W. September 1989. "Hydrometallurgical Recycling of Metal Sludge."... 

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