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8755831 
Meetings & Symposia 
Recycling of metals from spent catalysts of the petroleum industry 
Wiewiorowski, E 
1999 
2 
1209-1223 
English 
Spent catalysts from hydrogenation and hydrodesulfurization processes of the petroleum industry constitute a very cumbersome solid waste and are frequently classified as hazardous. New environmental legislation significantly restricts the possibility of landfilling such materials and in the near future landfilling is expected to be completely eliminated. In the last two decades, the fast changes in environmental requirements and the high content of metals in such materials (up to 30% aluminum, 3% cobalt, 12% molybdenum, 3% nickel and 10% vanadium) triggered an unprecedented increase in the development of processes for the recovery of those metals. This paper presents a classification and review of the growing number and variety of these technological processes. Established industrial operations as well as processes developed through laboratory or pilot plant scale testing are included. Economical, environmental and technical aspects of processing spent catalysts are discussed. Data on worldwide availability of spent catalysts and plant capacity for processing these materials are compared. The potential for the future development of processes for the recovery of metals from spent catalysts of the petroleum industry is assessed. 
Solozabal, R.