Assessment of possibility of obtaining alloying components in the process of desalting of heavy hydrocarbon raw materials. Part 2

Abstract

Earlier, the authors had already successfully proposed a method for extracting minerals from crude oil as a first step, to be further developed in this second step in the direction of obtaining solid (metallic and / or oxide) phases of nickel and vanadium. The scientific, practical and strategic importance of the work is clearly-underlined with a general depletion of vanadium and nickel ores. In the current situation of mineral resources with a general depletion of vanadium and nickel ores, it becomes necessary to search for new and alternative resources to obtain these strategic and important metals and their compounds from available resources. Taking into account that vanadium and nickel ores are practically absent in the raw material resources base of some countries, such as Middle East’s countries. Thus, a high percentage of imports of this metal product remains, which worsens the economic situation that has developed during political conflicts. The scientific approach was based on a combination of hydrometallurgical and electrometallurgical experiments, consistently carried out through the processes of sorption and desorption during cathodic electrodeposition. Sorption processes for vanadium and nickel were carried out using a mixture of Syrian sorbing materials (incense-type resins and surface-activated natural clays) with finely ground glass SiO2. Cathodic electrodeposition experiments were carried out on a copper cathode plate, and on the other hand, an insoluble glassy carbon electrode was used as the anode. All batch experiments were carried out to determine the best conditions for vanadium and nickel sorption by studying six different parameters affecting the sorption capacity of vanadium and nickel. As a result, the maximum sorption capacity of vanadium and nickel was 87.5 % and 91.3 % consistently under the predetermined conditions. Eventually, 7.6 % Ni (with a purity of 97 %) was recovered from the solution after the desorption process by the electrolytic method (during electrolysis); 15.6 % (99.3 % pure) V2O5 and 11.5 % (79 % pure) NiO chemically.