Effect of electroremediation application in the structure and contaminants of spent catalytics: Evaluation using NMR, EPR, DRX and XRF

The electrokinetic remediation process, through the application of electric potential and different electrolytes, aimed at mobilizing and removing contaminant metals in spent catalytic cracking catalysts. In this study, FCC spent catalysts were studied after the remediation process with three different electrolytes (solutions of sodium citrate, sulfuric acid or citric acid). The techniques of XRD, XRF, NMR and EPR were used in order to evaluate the changes. The results indicated that the electrokinetic remediation tends to reorganize the internal structure of the catalyst, recovering part of the crystallinity and removing a percentage of the contaminants. (author)