Study on Ultrasonically-Enhanced Deep Eutectic Solvents Leaching of Zinc from Zinc-Containing Metallurgical Dust Sludge

In this study, the zinc containing dust and sludge of iron and steel smelting was taken as the research object, and the new ionic liquid of choline-urea was prepared and synthesized as the leaching agent. The conventional and ultrasonic leaching of zinc were compared, and the influence of liquid-solid ratio, temperature, time, ultrasonic power and other conditions on the zinc leaching rate were analyzed. The leaching residue was characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and the kinetic equations of ligand leaching based on ultrasonically enhanced metallurgical dust sludge were constructed. The results showed that the choline chloride-urea ionic liquid has a special solubilization ability for ZnO, and the leaching rate of Zn at temperature 60 degrees C, ultrasonic power 350 W, and leaching time 240 min reached more than 98%. Kinetic fitting of the ChCl-urea leaching process revealed that the ChCl-urea leaching process was in accordance with the nucleation contraction model under both conventional and ultrasonic conditions, and the leaching process was dominated by interfacial mass transfer and solid film layer diffusion control for the reactions, respectively. The activation energies were Ea(1) = 44.56 kJ/mol and Ea(2) = 23.06 kJ/mol.

Automated summary

In this study, a new ionic liquid was used to leach zinc from metallurgical dust sludge, achieving a leaching rate of over 98%. The leaching process followed the nucleation contraction model and was controlled by interfacial mass transfer and solid film layer diffusion.