Removal process and mechanism of lead in Zn-containing rotary hearth furnace dust

•To deal with the removal of PbO2 during the purification process of the Zn-containing rotary hearth furnace (RHF) dust, this study adopts a choline chloride-urea (ChCl-urea) based deep eutectic solvent system and water-washed Zn-containing RHF dust as the main target of investigations, preparing ZnO nanoparticles using a Zn-induced PbO2 removal and thermal treatment of the precursor.•The final product had a ZnO content of 98.332% with a particle size distribution in the range of 10–100 nm with an average diameter of 39 nm, belonging to the Category-II ZnO nanoparticles.