Recovery of Zinc by LIX 984N-C from Electroplating Rinse Bath Solution Mehmet Kul,* and U ¨ mit C ¸ etinkaya Department of Metallurgical and Materials Eng., Engineering Faculty, Cumhuriyet University, 58140 Sivas, Turkey Abstract: The development of a complete solvent extraction process at the laboratory scale for recovering zinc from the zinc electroplating first rinse bath solution (alkali solution) containing ,1.9 g/L zinc (ZEFRBS) by a solvent extraction route using LIX 984N-C, which is a new SX reagent developed by Cognis, and dissolved in commercial kerosene was investigated. By using LIX 984N-C, an electrolyte from ZEFRBS with ,12 g/L zinc content, which was addable to the alkali zinc electroplating bath, was generated by 10 vol.% LIX 984N-C in commercial kerosene at the O/A ratio of 1/4 and equilibrium pH value of 8.00 ¡ 0.05 with a two-stage countercurrent extraction, and stripping of the loaded organic by a strip solution with 150 g/L sulfuric acid and with the O/A ratio of 1.5 at a two-stage countercurrent stripping process. A new complete flow sheet of 10 vol.% LIX 984N-C process for the recovery of zinc from ZEFRBS has been demonstrated. Keywords: Zinc electroplating first rinse bath solution, zinc recovery, solvent extraction INTRODUCTION Galvanizing is a metallurgic industry process consisting of covering the surface of iron or steel pieces with a reactive zinc layer that forms a very resistant covering so that the metallic piece is protected from oxidation. One of the most frequent processes of galvanizing is by electrolysis in an Address correspondence to Mehmet Kul, Dep. of Metallurgical and Materials Eng., Engineering Fac, Cumhuriyet University, Sivas, 58140, TURKEY. Tel.: +90 346 219 10 10 / 2803, Fax: +90 346 219 11 79, E-mail: mkul@cumhuriyet.edu.tr Solvent Extraction and Ion Exchange, 27: 536–550, 2009 Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN 0736-6299 print/1532-2262 online DOI: 10.1080/07366290903044626 536