Stainless steelmaking dust makes an environmental problem in the disposal or landfills and has been assigned as a hazardous waste by various government regulatory agencies because it leaches heavy metals to the groundwater or rainwater in the concentrations exceeding the environmental guidelines for solid waste disposal.Solidification of the dust is to stabilize the hazardous components into amorphous silica-alumina-based clays.Various mixtures of stainless steelmaking dust and clay were investigated and the softening temperatures of these mixtures were measured.The results indicate that the mixture of stainless steelmaking dust and clay additive with 1:1 ratio has the lowest softening temperature of 1 100 ℃.The clinkers can pass the TCLP leaching test after being thermally treated at the softening temperature for 15 min.A thermal process for the solidification of stainless steelmaking dust with typical clay is developed and the product is desirable for the production of bricks or disposal and landfill.
The heating and melting mechanisms of the pellets immersed in liquid slag were investigated, and the effect of the pellet heating and the melting conditions were studied. The results show that the dust component in the pellet is melted from the surface and no metallic elements are melted before the dust component, the time for the pellet completely melted is reduced as the iron powder content increases since the metallic iron has high thermal conductivity. These are four stages of heating and melting of pellet in liquid slag, they are the growth and melt of solid slag shell, penetration of liquid slag, dissolving of dust component and melting of reduced metals. The lifetime of the solid slag shell is in the range of 7-16 s and increasing the pre-heating temperature of the pellet and the slag temperature can shorten the slag shell lifetime. The time for the dust component in the pellet to be melted completely is in the range of 20-45 s and increasing the pre-heating temperature, especially in the range of 600-800 ℃, can obviously reduce the melting time. A higher slag temperature can also improve the pellet melting and the melting time is reduced by 10-15 s when the slag temperature is increased from 1 450 to 1 550 ℃. The pellet with higher content of iron powder is beneficial to the melting by improving the heat conductivity.
The cathodic deposition properties and mechanism of Zn in alkaline zincate solution were studied by electrochemical techniques. The results show that Zn2+ exists in the alkaline solution in the form of Zn(OH)42-. The apparent activation energy of the electrode reaction is 38.93 kJ/mol, which indicates that the discharge of Zn(OH)42- on cathode is controlled by electrochemical polarization, and accompanied by a preceding chemical reaction. The diffusion coefficient of Zn(OH)42- is 2.452×10-6 cm2/s. Zn(OH)2 is the species directly discharged on the cathode surface. Based on the above results the mechanism of zinc electroplating in alkaline zincate solution was put forward. The discharged species is Zn(OH)2 formed from the preceding chemical reaction, which becomes Zn(OH)ad when gaining one electron, and then gaining the second electron to become Zn. The first electron gaining step is rate determining one.
The effect of hydrogen inhibitor on partial current densities of Zn, Fe and differential capacitance of electrodeelectrolyte interface, and adsorbing type of hydrogen inhibitor were studied by the methods of electrochemistry. The mechanism of current efficiency improvement were explained from the point of valence electron theory. The results indicate that the partial current density of Fe increases in addition of hydrogen inhibitor, which reaches the maximum of 0.14 Adm2 when current density is 0.2 Adm2. Differential capacitance of electrodeelectrolyte interface decreases obviously from 20.3 μFcm2 to 7 μFcm2 rapidly with the concentration varying from 0 to 20 mLL, because hydrogen inhibitor chemically adsorbs on active points of Fe electrode surface selectively. Element S in hydrogen inhibitor with negative electricity and strong capacity of offering electron shares isolated electrons with Fe. The adsorption of H atom is inhibited when adsorbing on active points of Fe electrode surface firstly, and then current efficiency of Zn-Fe alloy electroplating is improved accordingly.
In order to inhibit hydrogen evolution and enhance current efficiency of Zn-Fe alloy electrodeposition from alkaline zincate solution, hydrogen inhibitors composed of the sulfur group elements were optimized on the basis of atom structures analysis. The effects of hydrogen inhibitor on the current efficiency of Zn-Fe alloy electroplating and their electrochemical behaviors were studied. The results indicate that hydrogen inhibitor can increase the current efficiency of Zn-Fe alloy electroplating evidently, from 63.28% without hydrogen inhibitor up to 83.54% with a hydrogen inhibitor at a volume fraction of 2.0%, while it has a minor influence on that of pure Zn plating, which maintains at 80%. The optimum volume fraction of hydrogen inhibitor is 2.0%.
