Migration of cadmium and antimony from zinc oxide emitted from a sintering machine in Zn and Pb pyrometallurgical process into environment

The pyrometallurgical process of production of zinc and lead realized in The Zinc Smelting Plant “Miasteczko Śląskie” S.A. poses a potential threat to the natural environment. Technologies applied in the process produce toxic pollutants, among which one of the most important is dust which contains Pb, Zn, Cd, As, Sb, Tl, etc. The detailed determination of chemical and mineral compositions of the dust allows to understand its behaviour in the environment and observe migration pathways. The paper presents results of investigations of the migration possibility to the soil and water environment of trace elements cadmium and antimony present in one of the main phases, zinc oxide, emitted with dusts from various operations of pyrometallurgical extraction of Zn and Pb at the Miasteczko Slaskie Zinc Smelting Plant, Poland. The quantity of elements was estimated on the basis of: (i) dust fall, (ii) zinc oxide content in dust, (iii) element content in zinc oxide, and (iv) mobility of zinc oxide under the hypergenic conditions of the soil and water environment of the Smelting Plant area. Among the elements considered, cadmium and antimony emitted with zinc oxide contained in dusts from the Sintering Machine will pose a potential hazard for the soil and water environment of the Miasteczko Slaskie Zinc Smelting Plant area.