Dissolution Behavior of Sodium Phosphate in a Na3PO4–Na2WO4–NaOH Solution System

Abstract

Sodium hydroxide autoclaving is the main method for smelting scheelite in China. In this method, sodium phosphate is added as an additive to realize the highly efficient decomposition of scheelite, and a crude sodium tungstate solution containing sodium phosphate and sodium hydroxide is obtained. In the subsequent process of ion exchange, phosphorus ions in the solution compete with the resin adsorption of tungstate, which reduces the adsorption capacity of the resin and endangers the purity of the subsequent sodium tungstate solution. To remove the phosphorus from crude sodium tungstate solution, a chemical purification method is usually adopted. The principle of the chemical purification method is to use chemical reagents to react with impurities to form precipitates to achieve the purpose of impurity removal. Because of the advantages of simple industrial implementation and high impurity removal efficiency, it has been widely used in phosphorus removal from crude sodium tungstate solution. However, in the process of phosphate removal in a crude sodium phosphate solution, the chemical purification method has some disadvantages. First, the additional cost of chemical reagents is required, and other metal impurities from chemical reagents would be introduced to crude sodium tungstate solution. Second, phosphate impurity removed by the chemical precipitation method is usually sedimented in other forms but sodium phosphate, which makes the phosphate resource unable to be recycled for tungsten smelting. Therefore, a novel phosphorus removal method needs to be developed. The dissolution behavior of sodium phosphate in a Na3PO4–Na2WO4–NaOH system was investigated in this paper. The results showed that in binary or ternary solution systems of sodium phosphate, sodium tungstate, and sodium hydroxide, the common-ion effect and salt effect exist simultaneously. The common-ion effect decreases the solubility of sodium phosphate, while the salt effect increases the solubility of sodium phosphate. Increasing the concentration of sodium hydroxide or sodium tungstate and lowering the temperature of the solution can greatly reduce the phosphorus concentration in crude sodium tungstate solution, making the crude sodium tungstate solution meet industrial requirements of ion exchange. The results of the study lay a theoretical foundation for the development of new phosphorus removal methods.