Recovery of Critical Metals from Rinsing Water by Zero-Valent Iron

To counteract supply bottlenecks, critical metal recovery from waste and waste waters plays a crucialrole. While critical methods are already recovered from high-concentrated process waters, only recently low-concentration rinsing waters come into focus due to rising raw material prices. Within the project “RECOMET – Recovery of Metals” it is be investigated which (potentially) critical raw materials can be fixed from rinsing waters by reduction-induced precipitation and/oradsorption using a fluidized-bed process with iron granules according to e.g.Fe0 + CrO42- + 4 H2O ↔ Fe(OH)3 + Cr(OH)3 + 2 OH- (1)Finally the fixed metals are separated from the solution by filtration. A fluidized-bed technology(ferroDECONT-process), which is approved for the remediation of contaminated sites, i.e. the reduction of chromate and the know-how in the field of waste water cleaning (AVR) are adaptedto the new field of critical metal recovery considering the transition from the “disposal society”to the “recycling society” to lay the foundation of future R&D projects for metal recovery from rinsing Waters.