Andrew Woollett is the founder of ZincOx Resources. After graduating as a geologist, he worked in Saudi Arabia, Greenland and Africa before setting up Reunion Mining which developed the Dunrobin and Sanyati mines and designed the flowsheet for the Skorpion Zinc mine/refinery. In 1999 he set up ZincOx Resources to bring to production unconventional sources of zinc. ZincOx developed process flowsheets for the Shaimerden and Jabali zinc deposits before turning its attention to the treatment of EAFDand the implementation of the Full Cycle technology.
Topic: Full Recycling of EAF and IF Dust Using ZincOx Technology
Abstract: ZincOx Resources has developed the Full Cycle technology to process zinc bearing steel wastes, and which transforms all the waste into valuable products. The process uses the rotary heath furnace to separate the dust into a zinc rich fumeand a reduced iron concentrate. The iron concentrate is melted in a reductive electric arc furnace to create pig iron and a saleable slag. The zinc rich fume undergoes a series of washing steps that eliminates impurities to create a zinc oxide of chemical quality (>99.5% ZnO), a lead (+silver) concentrate and a brine effluent that meets marine discharge standards. The process maximises the value of the waste’s components so that there is no solid waste, enabling profitable treatment even atlow zinc prices and so creating a sustainable solution for these hazardous wastes.The first plant using the core rotary hearth furnace equipment was built in 2012 and a second plant incorporating iron and zinc upgrading is under construction in Vietnam.