Thermal engineering method application for hazardous spent petrochemical catalyst neutralization

• Published in: Applied thermal engineering 2017-01, Vol.110, p.1428-1436
• Main Authors: Mymrin, Vsévolod, Pedroso, Amanda M., Ponte, Haroldo A., Ponte, Maria J.J., Alekseev, Kirill, Evaniki, Daniela, Pan, Roberto C.Y.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Common ceramics; Environmental efficiency; Heavy metals; Petrochemical catalyst waste; Physical–chemical interaction; Thermal engineering method
• ISSN: 1359-4311
• DOI: 10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2016.09.077

•Were developed construction materials with 30wt.% of the spent catalyst.•Flexural strength of ceramics is till 12.9MPa.•Values of water absorption coefficient vary from 6.4 to 8.2%.•New ceramics have mainly glassy structures with some crystal inclusions.•Utilization of industrial wastes has high environment efficiency. The production of catalysts by the company FCC SA for the Brazilian petrochemical industry is 25,000tons per annum, which after going through the cracking process cannot undergo regeneration any longer, being wasted with high contents of heavy metals and humidity near 70%. To increase the environmental efficiency of the rejected catalyst without preliminary drying and use of strong chemical binding for heavy metals, it was developed a method by using the main raw material composites with kaolin clay, wood ash and glass waste for the production of regular ceramics. The mixtures of these components were sintered at temperatures of 1000°C, 1100°C, 1200°C, 1250°C and 1300°C. The ceramics with 30wt.% of spent catalyst sintered at 1250°C have flexion resistance of 12.9MPa. After sintering process, the mixtures were analyzed by XRD, SEM, EDS and LAMMA methods been observed synthesizing of mainly amorphous vitreous materials with inclusion of new minerals mullite 2Al2O3·3SiO2 and graphite C.