Recovery of Platinum from Spent Petroleum Catalysts: Optimization Using Response Surface Methodology

The global yield of platinum (Pt) recovery from spent catalysts is about 30%. Pt recovery from spent catalysts is one of the most significant methods to reduce its supply risk and meet future demand. The current hydro-leaching processes always involve extremely high acidity (c(H+) > 6.0 mol/L), causing serious environmental issues and consuming large amounts of reagents. This paper studied the recovery of Pt from spent petroleum catalysts in a mild leaching solution (c(H+) = 1.0-2.0 mol/L). The HCl and NaCl were used as leaching agents, while H2O2 was used for oxidation of Pt. The leaching factors, including solid/liquid ratio (S/L), acidity, leaching temperature, and H2O2 usage, were studied. The leaching efficiency of Pt was 95.7% under the conditions of S/L of 1:5 g/mL, HCl of 1.0 mol/L, NaCl of 5.0 mol/L, 10% H2O2/spent catalysts of 0.6 mL/g, and temperature of 90 degrees C for 2 h. The leaching kinetic of platinum fits best to the Avrami equation. The apparent activation energy for leaching platinum was 114.9 kJ/mol. Furthermore, the effects of the operating variables were assessed and optimized by employing a response surface methodology based on Box-Behnken Design. The result shows that HCl concentration had the greatest impact on the leaching efficiency as compared to the H2O2 concentration and S/L ratio. Pt leaching efficiency was increased to 98.1% at the optimized conditions of HCl of 1.45 mol/L, NaCl of 4.55 mol/L, 10% H2O2/spent catalysts of 0.66 mL/g, and S/L of 1:4.85. The purity of Pt is over 90% by the reduction of iron powder.