Process for recovering volatilized rhenium oxides and sulfur oxides from gas streams

Abstract

Abstract A gas stream containing a silfur oxide and a volatilized rhenium oxide is scrubbed with an aqueous alkaline solution containing ions capable of forming sulfites and bisulfites, e.g., an ammonium or an alkali metal solution, to remove practically all of the sulfur oxide from the gas stream as a soluble sulfite and to dissolve the rhenium oxide in the resulting sulfite solution, which is maintained alkaline for the purpose. The rhenium-bearing sulfite solution is treated by known means, such as ion exchange or solvent extraction, to recover the rhenium oxide contained therein, and the effluent sulfite solution is then employed as the scrubbing solution in a second gas scrubbing stage in which a different sulfur-oxide-containing gas stream, such as the exit gas from a sulfuric acid plant, having substantially no rhenium content, is scrubbed to extract sulfur oxide, making such effluent sulfite solution acid and converting the sulfites into soluble bisulfites. Sulfur values are preferably recovered from the resulting bisulfite solution.

Inventors

• 👤 H Spedden

Bibliographic Details