Separation and recovery of zinc from blast furnace dust via coordination leaching of Cl− and hydrolysis of NH4

•A method for BFD recovery by coordination leaching of Cl− and hydrolysis of NH4+.•The NH4Cl coordination leaching process was analyzed by thermodynamic calculation.•The low-temperature crystallization was adopted to recover zinc from filtrate.•The separation and recovery of zinc from BFD was achieved. Blast furnace dust (BFD) is a by-product of iron-making process, a typical hazardous waste containing abundant recyclable components. In this study, a NH4Cl cooperative coordination leaching method was proposed for the selective separation and recovery of zinc from BFD. The thermodynamic analysis results revealed that ZnO and ZnSO4 from BFD can be converted to zinc-chlorine coordination compounds (ZnCli2−i, i = 1,2,3,4) in the cooperative actions of NH4+ and Cl− ions. The experimental results showed that the leaching efficiency of zinc reached 85.64% while iron and carbon was enriched from 46.76% to 57.96% under the optimal experimental conditions. The leaching residue with a total content 2.53% of Zn, Cl, K and Na can be returned to sintering for the recovery of iron and carbon. Moreover, the XRD, SEM-EDS and chemical phase analysis results of BFD and residue demonstrated that a small amount ZnO, ZnS and ZnFe2O4 were not leached and remained in the leaching residue. Additionally, a novel method of low-temperature crystallization was adopted to recover zinc from filtrate. The crystallization efficiency of zinc reached 80.96% and the obtained crystal was confirmed to be special Zn(NH3)2Cl2. Thus, this work not only achieved the separation and recovery of zinc from BFD, but also solved the disposal problem of leaching residue and crystallization solution, providing a guidance for the resource utilization of hazardous BFD.