Process for treating spent catalyst including antimony halides from chlorofluorocarbon production

摘要

A process in which spent catalyst from chlorofluorocarbon production is treated to detoxify the catalyst for safe disposal or reprocessing. The spent catalyst includes antimony and arsenic halides, halogenated organic liquids, and has an upper liquid portion and a lower sludge or semisolid portion. The processing of both the liquid and sludge portions includes hydrolyzing the catalyst in an aqueous solution of ferric chloride resulting in formation of a ferric ion/fluoride ion complex in addition to insoluble compounds, and neutralizing the reaction mass following hydrolysis with an aqueous suspension of calcium hydroxide. The volatile organics are stripped from the neutralized reaction mass and collected for reuse or disposal. The reaction mass is dried to yield the insoluble compounds in a solid form for subsequent reprocessing or disposal. The sludge portion is preferably treated separately following treatment of the liquid portion by dissolving the sludge in situ before hydrolyzing using an organic liquid solvent comprising a mixture of n-butanol and previously collected volatile organic liquids.