Method and System for low carbon thermo-metallurgical Processing and Extracting of Metals from Industrial By-Products

A method for low carbon thermo-metallurgical processing and extracting of volatile metals, comprising the steps of:

• a) mixing processed material with reducing agent, additives and pelletizing it using water,
• wherein the reducing agent is preferably in a form of carbon dust form, virgin or spent carbon, and
• wherein the water for pelletizing is either tap water or waste water;
• and
• wherein the additives are selected from a group of microwave absorption material used to increase pellets porosity, inner surface area, gas diffusion of pellet, microwave absorption, lower processing temperature, volatile metals evaporation from pellets matrix;
• wherein the microwave absorption material includes graphite, graphene, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and carbon fibers, oxides such as Fe2O3, Fe3O4, ZnO and carbides such as SiC;
• b) drying and preheating pellets to a temperature below 300° C. by a dryer heating using a microwave heater to form a preheated pellets;
• c) heating the preheated pellets by a modular furnace heated in controlled reducing atmosphere (containing nitrogen mixed with hydrogen) to temperature of at least 900° C. until a zinc, lead and other volatile metals in the preheat pellets vaporize to form a metal vapor and concentrated iron pellets (CIP),
• d) collecting the metal oxide from process gas,
• wherein step (a) further includes the of:
• determining a percentage of metals in the a of raw material;
• mixing the portion of raw material with a quantity of carbon and other additives, wherein the quantity of carbon is determined by the percentage of metals to be evaporated.