An investigation into the feasibility of recovering valuable metals from solid oxide compounds by gas phase extraction in a fluidised bed

Recent years have seen the application of the concept of fluidisation extended to different kinds of industrial processes. This technology now plays a central role in the chemical and petrochemical industries, in power generation and in mineral processing and metallurgy. The current research is directed towards gas-phase extraction of metals because of the high yield of recovery that can potentially be achieved. This process achieves the extraction of metals by using a volatile organic reagent, which passes through the feed material and reacts selectively with the metal to be extracted. The product is a volatile metal complex, which is removed from the residual gangue by a carrier gas.The results showed that the procedure could be successfully applied to recover aluminium, chromium, vanadium and iron with acetylacetone from their respective solid oxides in a fluidised bed. The percentage recovery ranged from 75.2% for iron to 48.2% for chromium. Kinetic investigations were performed to estimate the activation energy required for each reaction. The recovery of the metals depended on the temperature and reaction time.