Abstract:The jarosite slag produced from process of iron removal from the zinc leaching process in a lead-zinc smelter in northwest China was taken as the research object. The chemical composition, mineral composition and occurrence state of valuable minerals such as iron and zinc, and the carbothermal reduction process of jarosite slag were studied in detail by means of chemical multi-element analysis, MLA, SEM and TG-DSC. The results show that the main valuable elements in jarosite slag are iron, zinc, lead, etc. The iron mainly exists in ferrite, zinc mainly exists in zinc sulfate and zinc ferrite, and the lead mainly distributes in the ferrite slag by cerusite, plumbojarosite, lead sulfide and lead sulfate. Through TG-DSC analysis, iron, zinc and lead in jarosite slag can be decomposed within 1 400 ℃, and the valuable metals can be recovered by carbothermal reduction.