Separation and recovery of vanadium from leached solution of spent residuehydrodesulfurization (RHDS) catalyst using solvent extraction

Leached solution, generated by oxalic acid washing of spent residue hydrodesulfurization (RHDS) catalyst, was used for separation and recovery of vanadium. First of all, solvent extraction, using mixture of 20% (v/v) Alamine-336 and 5% (v/v) tri-butyl phosphate (TBP) as a phase modifier, was conducted to extract molybdenum completely at pH 0.50. Then molybdenum-free solution was used for vanadium extraction at pH 1.25 with 20% Alamine-336 and 5% TBP. Stripping of vanadium from loaded organic solution was performed with 1.5 M H2SO4 at O/A phase ratio of 5:1 where more than 99% of vanadium was stripped in two stages. The stripped vanadium solution was further processed by precipitating with ammonium hydroxide to recover ammonium-meta-vanadate which was calcined to obtain vanadium pentoxide. Finally a conceptual process was established for recovery of high purity vanadium pentoxide from oxalic acid leached solution of spent residue hydrodesulfurization (RHDS) catalyst.