Combined Process of Chlorination Roasting and Acid Leaching of Lead and Silver from Lead Cake

This study investigates the feasibility of efficiently recovering lead and silver from a lead cake by applying a combined process of chlorination roasting followed by acid leaching. The lead cake is obtained after the sulfuric acid leaching of zinc ferrite residues generated during the hydrometallurgical treatment of zinc calcine. The influence of roasting temperature, the mass ratio between lead cake and NaCl, and the roasting duration on metal extraction was systematically investigated to determine optimal process conditions. The most efficient parameters were identified as roasting at 550 °C for 1.5 hours with a lead cake to NaCl ratio of 1:3, followed by leaching the roasted product in 1 M HCl. Under these conditions, the remaining Pb and Ag contents in the final solid residue were reduced to 0.90 % and 0.0027 %, respectively, indicating nearly complete chlorination and subsequent dissolution of both metals. A comparative evaluation showed that the combined chlorination roasting–leaching approach resulted in higher recovery rates (Pb 98.67 %, Ag 98.09 %) and a smaller final residue mass than direct chloride leaching (Pb 96.79 %, Ag 84.55 %). Therefore, the proposed method is demonstrated to be more effective and environmentally advantageous for recovering valuable metals from industrial waste materials.