Thermal Processing of Industrial Ashes for Ferrovanadium Production

Petroleum fly ash generated from heavy oil fired power plant contains significant amount of vanadium and carbon. In the present study a recipe-based concept is introduced for metal recovery by making use of two waste ash residues: basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking flue dust, and petroleum fly ash. The carbon contained in the fly ash is used as the reductant and BOF flue dust provides iron source and partially slag formers. A ferrovanadium alloy (FeV) with 15–20% vanadium was produced through reduction smelting of the two ash mixture at 1550–1600°C in the lab. Some impurities (Ni, S and C) remain in the metal. The carbon to metal ratio has the largest effect on the metal quality. The slag properties such as basicity are important for metal yield and metal quality. The results prove that a recipe-based multi-waste co-processing can be a sustainable solution for converting wastes to valuable raw materials.