• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2010

Transition metal based spent catalysts (Ni-Mo and Co-Mo), which were scrapped from the petrochemical industry, were reused for the removal processes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Especially the optimum regeneration procedures were determined using the removal efficiency of VOCs. In this work, the spent Ni-Mo and spent Co-Mo catalysts were pretreated with different physic-chemical treatment procedure: 1) acid aqueous solution, 2) alkali solution, 3) chemical agent and 4) steam. The various characterization methods of spent and its regenerated catalysts were performed using nitrogen adsorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). It was found that all spent catalysts were found to be potentially applicable catalysts for catalytic oxidation of benzene. The experimental results also indicated that among the employed physico-chemical pretreatment methods, the oxalic acid aqueous (0.1 N, $C_2H_2O_4$) pretreatment appeared to be the most efficient in increasing the catalytic activity, although the catalytic activity of spent Ni-Mo and spent Co-Mo catalysts in the oxidation of benzene were greatly dependent on the pretreatment conditions. The pretreated spent catalysts at optimum condition could be also applied for removing other aromatic compounds (Toluene/Xylene).

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.668-673
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• 2008

The objective of this study is to optimize the leaching conditions of sequential leaching and extracting processes for selective Ni recovery from spent Ni-Mo-based catalyst. The selective Ni recovery process consists of two processes of leaching and extracting process. In this 2-step process, Ni component is dissolved from solid spent Ni-Mo-based catalyst into leaching agent in leaching process and sequentially extracted to Ni complex with an extracting agent in the extracting process. The solutions of nitric acid ($HNO_3$), ammonium carbonate ($(NH_4)_2CO_3$) and sodium carbonate ($Na_2CO_3$) were used as a leaching agent in leaching process and oxalic acid was used as an extracting agent in extracting process. $HNO_3$ solution is the most efficient leaching agent among the various leaching agent. Also, the optimized leaching conditions for the efficient and selective Ni recovery were the leaching temperature of $90^{\circ}C,\;HNO_3$ concentration of 6.25 vol% and elapsed time of 3 h. As a result, Nickel oxalate having the highest yield of 88.7% and purity of 100% was obtained after sequentially leaching and extracting processes under the optimized leaching conditions.