A considerable rise in the Electric Arc Furnace steelmaking has taken place in the EU during the last decade. As a result, the amount of steelmaking dust has increased as well. This dust is recycled in order to recover the valuable amount of zinc present in it. In contrast to the increase in dust generation, the capacity of recycling sites has not changed accordingly and there are growing concerns over this imbalance. In the present thesis, logistics and resource allocation of dust recycling in the EU are analysed. Data collected through a questionnaire survey was used to formulate the transportation model of linear programming. The results of the model highlight the location of gaps in recycling capacity and its uneven geographical distribution. The state of the recycling can be improved by research in scrap de-zincing; a process that can recover most of the zinc prior to steelmaking thereby lowering the total amount of dust. To this effect experiments were conducted using electro-galvanized scrap samples in order to study the kinetics of zinc evaporation. Various parameters such as the flow rate of carrier gas, scrap heating rate, packed bed voidage, permeability, and specific surface area were studied with a view of a possible scale-up of the process. The results show that there is a potential of integrating the de-zincing step into high temperature scrap pre-heating processes using shaft type systems that utilize off-gases of steelmaking and auxiliary burners.

A considerable rise in the Electric Arc Furnace steelmaking has taken place in the EU during the last decade. As a result, the amount of steelmaking dust has increased as well. This dust is recycled in order to recover the valuable amount of zinc present in it. In contrast to the increase in dust generation, the capacity of recycling sites has not changed accordingly and there are growing concerns over this imbalance. In the present thesis, logistics and resource allocation of dust recycling in the EU are analysed. Data collected through a questionnaire survey was used to formulate the transportation model of linear programming. The results of the model highlight the location of gaps in recycling capacity and its uneven geographical distribution. The state of the recycling can be improved by research in scrap de-zincing; a process that can recover most of the zinc prior to steelmaking thereby lowering the total amount of dust. To this effect experiments were conducted using electro-galvanized scrap samples in order to study the kinetics of zinc evaporation. Various parameters such as the flow rate of carrier gas, scrap heating rate, packed bed voidage, permeability, and specific surface area were studied with a view of a possible scale-up of the process. The results show that there is a potential of integrating the de-zincing step into high temperature scrap pre-heating processes using shaft type systems that utilize off-gases of steelmaking and auxiliary burners.