Recovery of molybdenum, cobalt and nickel from spent hydrodesulphurization catalyst through oxidizing roast followed by sodium persulfate leaching

Abstract

The spent hydrodesulphurization (HDS) catalyst is an important secondary source for Ni, Mo, Co and Al metals. The high yield recovery of these metals is quite difficult due to the carbon accumulated on the catalyst surface and the stability of the metal oxides. Therefore, the leaching process in the presence of sodium persulfate (Na2S2O8) was carried out after the roasting pre-treatment to remove the carbon from the spent HDS catalyst structure and convert the metal oxides to the soluble form in this study. The optimum experimental conditions were determined as roasting temperature, 500 °C; roasting time, 120 min.; particle size, +75–30 μm; liquid/solid ratio, 12.5 mL/g; Na2S2O8 concentration, 0.4 M; leaching temperature, 50 °C; leaching time, 90 min and stirring speed, 400 r/min. Recovery of Mo (89.8%), Co (86.5%) and Ni (81.2%) from leach solution were achieved by precipitation method. The liquid film diffusion control mechanism best represents the proposed leaching process. On the other hand, the magnitude of Ea values (<20 kJ/mol) for Mo, Co, Ni and Al metals indicates that the leaching process is controlled by liquid film diffusion mechanism.