Researchers from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a new strategy to characterise polymeric transition metal species in acidic solution, which may help to separate those high-purity metals.
Using this method, the researchers visualised the transformation evolutions of vanadium (V) species, chromium (Cr) species, tungsten (W) species and molybdenum (Mo) species.
"We can use this facile method to investigate the hydrolysis evolutions of polymeric metal species systematically," said Pengge Ning, a principal investigator at IPE.
The researchers described the formation and polymerization of the four metals (V, Cr, W and Mo) by this method. The obtained species distribution can guide the appropriate reaction conditions for high-purity metal separation. They realised the production of 99.9% high-purity vanadium under 100 L/h pilot-scale.
"This work is promising in metal chemical speciation characterisation even for Ni, Co, and REE metals," said Ning, "it will guide further development of high-purity metal recovery."
This news item is based on a press release that appeared on the Chinese Academy of Sciences website.