Recovery of anhydrous zinc chloride

摘要

A process for the recovery of anhydrous zinc chloride from aqueous solutions containing zinc chloride and typical impurities, comprising: extracting zinc chloride onto a suitable organic extractant such as TBP; stripping the organic extractant with an organic reagent immiscible in the extractant, such as ethylene glycol; adding ammonia or other ammine donor to the loaded organic strip to precipitate a zinc chloride-ammine composition which may be decomposed to anhydrous zinc chloride by heating. The anhydrous zinc chloride is of high purity suitable for fused salt electrolysis to produce elemental zinc.