Exploration of process optimization for recovery of sodium and ammonium sulfate crystals from vanadium precipitation wastewater

Abstract

In this paper, we have studied vanadium precipitation wastewater in two stages of the fractional crystallization process. In order to extract sodium sulfate and ammonium sulfate products with large particle size and uniform particle size distribution from the rear end vanadium precipitation wastewater and to realize the resource reuse of vanadium precipitation wastewater, the effects of various operating parameters (seeding amount, evaporation rate, stirring rate, growing time) on the particle size and particle size distribution of sodium sulfate and ammonium sulfate products were investigated. Better separation and crystallization conditions of sodium sulfate and ammonium sulfate were obtained. The optimized crystallization conditions of sodium sulfate are: the addition amount of ammonium sulfate seeding with a particle size of 40 μm is 1.17 %, the evaporation rate is 100 mL/h, the stirring rate is 80 rpm, the crystal growth time is 60 min, and the main particle size M.S. value of sodium sulfate crystals is 242.23 μm; The optimized crystallization conditions of ammonium sulfate were as follows: the addition amount of sodium sulfate seeding with a particle size of 80 μm was 0.68 %, the evaporation rate was 160 mL/h, the stirring rate was 150 rpm, and the crystal growth time was 30 min. The M.S. value of the final ammonium sulfate crystal was 880 μm.