Optimization and Biomass Utilization in Heavy Metal Recycling

Environmental legislation, limited resources as well as high metal prices force the metallurgical industry more and more to make use of secondary materials. For this, also residues from metal production are nowadays considered as a possible resource. Due to their often complex structure and the presence of a multi-metal-system, efficient recycling of such materials is not easy to realize and suffers from various problems. The Christian Doppler Laboratory for Optimization and Biomass Utilization in Heavy Metal Recycling together with its partner companies Befesa R&D, voestalpine Stahl Linz, RHI, and Aurubis investigate alternative strategies and optimization possibilities for the considered residues. The achievements of three years’ activity in the major fields of the CDL, characterization of the complex input materials, upgrade of the product quality of recycling processes, utilization of biomass in the form of charcoal for use as a reducing agent and simultaneous recovery of valuable metals are described in the paper.