Abstract:Industrial production has flourished as an integral part of global development and progress. However, the valuable components in raw materials for production are not fully utilized in production process and still remain in the form of leaching residues or slags, such as zinc and iron. Zinc ferrite is the main form of zinc and iron in the residues or slags of zinc metallurgy and iron and steel metallurgy, which is difficult to recover due to its stable property, resulting in a large loss of resources. The comprehensive review of existing zinc ferrite decomposition technologies was presented, and prospects for future technology development were outlined. After comparing the pyrometallurgical, hydrometallurgical and pyro-hydrometallurgical processes, and considering the current development of zinc metallurgy, it is found that hot acid leaching process is a better method for zinc ferrite decomposition. However, problems such as high yield of iron precipitation residue and difficulty in its treatment limits the further development of the process. In order to solve these problems, the combination of hot acid leaching process and reductive leaching process was proposed, a little raw materials or intermediate products with reducing properties can be added, and while ensuring the decomposition efficiency of zinc ferrite, the system sulfuric acid concentration and reaction temperature can be reduced to achieve an efficient and economical process. For the transformation from hot acid leaching process to reductive leaching process, although the reaction conditions are milder and zinc-iron co-precipitation in iron removal is reduced, the selection of the reductants in the practical application still needs to be solved properly.