ABSTRACT
The metallurgical industry is concerned with the production of metals from ores, end-of-life products and various co-products generated along the route from ore to finished product and the processing of extracted metals to semi-finished and finished metal articles. The search for an industrial ecology solution starts with analysis of the industrial metabolism in terms of its mass and energy flows. This analysis is complemented by an overall evaluation of the scientific, technical and economic synergies in order to discover the best available technology to be transferred. Extractive metallurgy uses two basic processing routes characterised by the physical state in which the metal is obtained: liquid or solid. Solid metal is specific to the hydrometallurgical route and liquid metal to the pyrometallurgical route. Scrap-based steelmaking is a better example to use for the application of industrial ecology because the scrap-based steelmaking route is characterised by the generation of dust containing zinc and lead oxides— heavy metals contained in the coated scrap.
