Electro-Recovery of Nickel from Spent Catalyst (Solid Waste) Coming out from Nitrogenous Fertilizer Industry

R. P. Prajapati¹*, Anand Sharma² and D. R. Tiwari²

¹Department of Chemistry (DESM) Regional Institute of Education Bhopal - 462 013 (India). ²Department of Chemistry and Geology, Government M.V.M., Bhopal - 462 001 (India).

Spent catalysts are principally solid waste which that coming out from nitrogenous fertilizer industry, during the production of ammonia, resulting in the production of large amount of solid waste containing nickel, which is the spent or deactivated catalysts. These catalysts contain from 12-14% nickel based on the production process in fertilizer industry disposal of spent catalyst is a problem as falls under the category of hazardous industrial waste. The recovery of Nickel from spent catalyst is an important economic aspect and secondary sources, such as spent catalyst could minimzie land fill disposal and the waste of natural resources. These spent catalysts are generally supported on porous materials like alumina and silica through precipitation or impregnation processes. For extraction of nickel from spent nickel catalysts, the waste catalyst was colleted from NFL Vijaipur Industry district Guna(M.P.). Nickel electro-recovery from spent catalyst, lechate solution was used to determine the best operating conditions from recovery process and resutls were obtained.

Electro-recovery; spent catalyst; leaching; pyrometallurgy; nickel