The ultimate objective of this project is to selectively recover gallium (Ga) and germanium (Ge) from zinc wastes of different sources. To achieve this objective, the proposed research will: develop and optimize flowsheets for selective separation of Ga and Ge through multistage mineral and hydrometallurgical processing and link the new flowsheets to current operations at domestic refineries, perform Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) to evaluate the economic feasibility of the developed flowsheets, and perform Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to assess the environmental impacts of the developed processes against conventional sources of Ga and Ge.
