Study of leaching behavior of tin in Zinc-clinker and Mixed Oxide

Sammanfattning: Due to the increasing usage of Sn in different electronics, such as solders and in touchscreens, together with Boliden Rönnskärs increased intake of electronic waste as a secondaryraw material, a Zn-containing product called Zn-clinker has increasing amounts of Sn. TheZn-clinker is shipped to Boliden Zn-smelter in Odda, where the Zn-clinker is mixed in withcalcine (roasted concentrate) and leached in several steps. Since Zn-clinker is a product froma halogen removal in a clinker-furnace, the feed material (Mixed Oxide), for this furnace, wasalso investigated since there are plans to replace clinkering with soda-washing in the future.Most of the Sn ends up in the leaching residue which then is deposited in the mountaincaverns close by the Boliden Odda smelter. Boliden is studying the possibility to recoverPb/Ag and Sn content from the leaching residue and create a valuable by-product. Bystudying how the leaching of Sn behaves, together with a characterization of the materials, thefollowing question should be answered: “During which sulphuric acid leaching conditions, ofZn-clinker and Mixed Oxide, is the leaching of Sn minimized?” The leaching results for Zn-clinker showed that 8-10% Sn will leach out, despite changingtemperature, redox potential, time and pH. A characterization of the material with SEM-EDSand XRD-analysis was also conducted to see if Sn could be identified in any phases in thematerials. The studies provided enough evidence that Zn2SnO4 could be concluded to be themain phase in the leaching residue for Zn-clinker, a form that would not leach underconditions presented in this project. However, 8-10% of the Sn will come together with Feand when Fe leach out, so does Sn. The leaching results for Mixed Oxide pointed towards that different phases from them foundin Zn-clinker was present. Sn losses varied between 10-20% but raised to 47% whentemperature was changed to 80 °C during leaching. The SEM-EDS analysis showed that theidentified Sn-phases contained more Sn than in Zn-clinker and together with the leachingresults, a conclusion that Sn would mainly be found as SnO2 or SnO in the Mixed Oxide, butthere is still uncertainty about the distributions of these forms. Unfortunately half of the As leached out during the soda-washing for Mixed Oxide, creating aleachate with Cl, F and As that need to be taken care of. This could be challenging andpresenting a costly side-project for the route different from the Zn-clinker route used today.Another observation was that PbCO3 formed during the soda-washing, a phase that willconsume more sulphuric acid during leaching.