Recovery of vanadium (V) from spent catalysts used in sulfuric acid production units by acid or alkaline leaching

The present paper, studies the recovery of vanadium from the spent catalyst by using acidic or alkaline leaching technique. The optimal conditions of spent catalyst leaching have been studied. It has been shown that 20%(w/w) of sulfuric acid is the most suitable for leaching process at 70 Centigrade. The precipitation of vanadium using some alkaline media (Na2CO3, (NH4)CO3 and NH4OH) has been also studied, it has been shown that ammonium hydroxide was the best at 60 degree, and iron was co-precipitated with vanadium which pollute the obtained red cake. So it is necessary to use liquid-liquid extraction technique for the separation between vanadium and iron and to have iron free red cake. (author)