Preliminary Evaluation of Feasibility of Recovery of Precious Metals from Spent Catalysts

Considering their high price and environmental problems of disposal, recovery of valuable metals from spent catalysts has a great importance. With respect to their high degree of use and value (their price is more than 10 times of their recovery price), companies move toward recovery of these valuable metals. In this work using technical data of catalyst manufacturing companies composition of fresh catalysts of different units of a refinery was determined. Then samples of used catalysts in the refinery units were analyzed and percentage of precious metals in catalysts was determined. Simple economical evaluation showed that with respect to high degree of use of catalysts and application of metals in manuf acturing of many products, recovery of valuable metals from spent catalysts is necessary and recommended. Results show that recovery of Pt from catalysts of Catalytic reforming unit, Co and Mo from catalysts of Hydrotreating unit, and Ni from catalysts of Methanation unit are advantageous from economical view. Profit of recovery for Pt, Co, Mo and Ni is 30755, 541, 303 and 156 UD$/ton respectively.