Method for extracting antimony from elemental phosphorus
AssigneeFMC Corporation
InventorLouis T. Gunkel
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A process for purifying elemental phosphorus, by dosing a multi-phase elemental phosphorus system, having an aqueous phase and an immiscible, elemental phosphorus phase containing antimony, with a conditioning agent selected from the group consisting of iron (II) salt or iron (III) salt with free iodine; iron (II) iodide; free iodine; iron (II) sulfate; or iron (III) sulfate in an amount effective to lower the amount of antimony in the phosphorus; agitating the resultant mixture at a temperature above the melting point of phosphorus, but below the boiling point of water, and then separating the aqueous phase from the phosphorus phase to recover a phosphorus lower in antimony content.
Claims20
A process for purifying elemental phosphorus, comprising dosing a multi-phase elemental phosphorus system, having an aqueous phase and an immiscible, elemental phosphorus phase containing antimony, with a conditioning agent selected from the group consisting of iron (II) salt and elemental iodine, iron (III) salt and elemental iodine;
- iron (II) iodide;
- elemental iodine;
- iron (II) sulfate;
- and iron (III) sulfate in an amount effective to lower the amount of antimony in the phosphorus;
- agitating the resultant mixture at a temperature above the melting point of phosphorus, but below the boiling point of water, then separating the aqueous phase from the phosphorus phase to recover a phosphorus lower in antimony content.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.