Recovery or arsenic and antimony from spent antimony catalyst

Abstract

Antimony, or antimony and arsenic, are recovered from a halocarbon-containing spent antimony pentachloride catalyst, such as a catalyst used in the manufacture of fluorocarbons, in a manner that produces a substantially nontoxic waste product that is environmentally acceptable for disposal in a landfill. In the process, the antimony pentachloride in the spent catalyst is reduced to antimony trichloride, which is extracted from the reduced agent catalyst by means of an aqueous acid, arsenic trichloride which is commonly also present in such spent catalyst is extracted at the same time, the aqueous extract is separated from an organic phase which can be disposed of by incineration, the metal values are removed from the aqueous extract by further reduction and separation of, and the residual aqueous acid phase is neutralized and solidified by the addition of lime or other environmentally acceptable base.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.