A hydrometallurgical process for treating the hazardous jarosite residue from zinc hydrometallurgy was proposed, for not only detoxifying the residue, but also recovering the contained valuable metal components. The jarosite was initially activated and decomposed by sintering at 650 degrees C for 1 h. The sintered residue was leached in 6 mol L(-1) aqueous NH(4)Cl solution at 105 degrees C, followed by filtration. The leaching extraction of Zn, Pb, Cu, Cd and Ag are more than 95%. During reduction with Zn powder, more than 93% of Pb, Cu, Ag and Cd can be simultaneously recovered. Then the NH(4)Cl leaching residue were leached again in 30 wt% aqueous NaOH solution for 1 h at 160 degrees C, and about 94% of As and 73% of Si were removed from the residue. The final residue was almost completely detoxified, and contains about 55 wt% Fe, which can be used as an iron concentration. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.