Comparative investigation of leaching of zinc from wastes of the zinc alloy production process

The main purpose of this study was to recover zinc from the waste obtained from plants manufacturing zinc alloys. Waste leaching in organic and inorganic acids has been studied in this article. It was shown that organic acids like citric acid have a higher efficiency in zinc leaching than inorganic acids. Applying optimum conditions, resulted in about 86% of zinc efficiency from the waste. Finally, thermodynamics and kinetics aspects of the process were also studied. Considering the results showed that the surface chemical reaction is the zinc leaching process controller in this condition.