Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

Indium-containing dust, including lead smelting dust, copper smelting dust, zinc smelting dust, steel dust, etc., is an important raw material for extracting rare metal indium. Hydrometallurgical leaching is the main process for treating indium-containing dust. In this paper, the current situation of hydrometallurgical leaching of indium from indium-containing dust was comprehensively reviewed. At the same time, the characteristics and limitations of different processes such as high temperature and high acid leaching, oxidative acid leaching, mechanically enhanced acid leaching, extenal field enhanced leaching, acidification roasting leaching on indium metal and insoluble indium phase leaching were compared and analyzed, and the problems of each process in industrial production practice were pointed out. In addition, the research progress of selective extraction of indium by new leaching agent-deep eutectic solvent was analyzed, and the prospect of industrial application of deep eutectic solvent in hydrometallurgical leaching of rare metals such as indium was put forward.