Extraction of Selenium from the Dusts of Bag Dust Filters of the Kaldo Furnace

The paper presents the results of the laboratory study to extract selenium from dusts of bag dust filters during the refining production obtained from the Kaldo furnace operation at the Balkhash smelter of Kazakhmys Corporation LLP (the Republic of Kazakhstan). The studies were performed using modern analysis methods (X-ray fluorescence analysis with an Axios PANalyical wavelength-diode combined spectrometer, electron microscopy with a scanning electron microscope equipped with a JEOL GXA-8230 microanalyzer, and X-ray analysis using a diffraction spectrometer D8 ADVANCE BRUKER with an X-ray diffractometer) and using vacuum equipment. It was found out that dusts of bag dust filters formed in the Kaldo furnace aspiration system contain up to 30% selenium, mainly in the form of dioxide. The process of transfer of water-soluble selenium compounds to a solution followed by selenium precipitation of with sodium metabisulfite was studied to extract selenium from dusts. The selenium thus obtained was distilled in vacuum. Selenium containing 99.987% of the main component was obtained as a result.