Enhancing wet phosphoric acid production efficiency with vanadium catalyst waste derived silica
Islaam Anouar,
Rim Jouraiphy,
Hamid Mazouz,
Nils Haneklaus,
Samia Yousfi,
Mouna L. Bouamrani
Affiliations
Islaam Anouar
Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation & Research, Rabat, Morocco; Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Lot 660 Hay Moulay Rachid, Ben Guerir, 43150, Morocco; Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry and PhysicoChemistry of Materials, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences Ben M'Sik, University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco; Corresponding author. Moroccan Foundation for Advanced Science, Innovation & Research, Rabat, Morocco.
Rim Jouraiphy
Engineering, Industrial Management, and Innovation Laboratory, Faculty of Science and Techniques, University HASSAN I, Settat, Morocco
Hamid Mazouz
Center of Expertise for Phosphate (CEPH), Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Ben Guerir, 43150, Morocco
Nils Haneklaus
Td-Lab Sustainable Mineral Resources, Universität für Weiterbildung Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30, 3500, Krems an der Donau, Austria; North-West University, Unit for Energy and Technology Systems - Nuclear Engineering, 11 Hoffman Street, Potchefstroom, 2520, South Africa; Corresponding author. Td-Lab Sustainable Mineral Resources, Universität für Weiterbildung Krems, Dr.-Karl-Dorrek-Straße 30, 3500, Krems an der Donau, Austria.
Samia Yousfi
Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry and PhysicoChemistry of Materials, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences Ben M'Sik, University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco
Mouna L. Bouamrani
Laboratory of Analytical Chemistry and PhysicoChemistry of Materials, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences Ben M'Sik, University Hassan II, Casablanca, Morocco
Filtration of phosphogypsum (PG) is an important step in the production of wet phosphoric acid (WPA). In recent years, the phosphate rocks used for WPA production in Morocco started showing deficiencies in terms of their reactive silica content that affects PG crystallization and as such decreases PG filtration efficiency and subsequently the overall efficiency of the WPA production. In this work reactive silica waste from spent vanadium catalysts, used in the production of sulfuric acid for WPA production, was added to the digestion process in an attempt to increase WPA production efficiencies. The laboratory work presented here shows that the added silica improved the quality of the produced dihydrate WPA by 6 %. Besides, the chemical yield of the reaction was improved by 5 % as a result of the shape-change of the PG crystals that allowed for better filtration. The results of this work are promising and we strongly recommend testing this approach on larger pilot- and ultimately industrial scale.
