China Nonferrous Metallurgy

For many years, China has been the world’s largest producer and consumer of zinc.With the increasing pressure of energy conservation, environmental protection, and resource recycling requirements, it is imperative to promote technological progress and process innovation in the zinc industry. Based on a systematic overview of the status of zinc smelting process in China, this paper summarizes the technological innovation and application practice of zinc smelting process in the past decade. At present, the existing zinc hydrometallurgy process is gradually returning to the conventional leaching process, and is developing in the direction of large-scale equipment and harmless leaching slag, and slag treatment technologies such as side blowing submerged combustion bath smelting is developing rapidly. The hot acid leaching-hematite iron removal process has great development potential and has been industrialized. The production cost of the pressurized oxygen-enriched leaching process is still higher than that of the conventional process, which is suitable for enterprises with small demand for sulfuric acid and high transportation costs. The new high-efficiency zinc pyrometallurgical process has become the future development trend whether in primary ore smelting or in the recovery of zinc-containing secondary materials, because the high concentration and shortened flow, and it can effectively utilize the sensible heat of slag, reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.