Fluid cracking catalyst and method of making same from waste catalyst manufacture fines

Claim 1

A process for producing a family of fluid cracking catalysts which comprises (a) mixing microspheres of kaolin clay calcined at least substantially through the characteristic exotherm and metakaolin with a solution of sodium silicate or sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide, said mixture also containing a sodium aluminosilicate zeolite seeding material either contained in the microspheres or mixed into said solution of sodium silicate or sodium silicate and sodium hydroxide; (b) heating the mixture until crystals of sodium zeolite Y form in the microspheres, resulting in the formation of an alkaline sodium silicate mother liquor, microspheres containing at least 40% sodium zeolite Y, and ultrafine crystals of sodium zeolite Y and.other ultrafine solids; (c) separating microspheres from step (b) from said mother liquor under conditions such that ultrafine crystals of zeolite Y and other ultrafine solids are recovered as an aqueous effluent; (d) recovering said ultrafine crystals of sodium zeolite Y and other ultrafine solids from the aqueous phase; (e) mixing the recovered solids from step (d) with a binder effective amount of sodium silicate to form a slurry, (f) spray drying said slurry from step (e) to form microspheres comprising ultrafine solids recovered in step (d) and including crystals of sodium zeolite Y; (g) forming at least a portion of the zeolite-containing microspheres from step (b) and at least a portion of the zeolite-containing microspheres from step (f) into separate slurries; (h) and separately ion-exchanging the microspheres in the separate slurries to replace sodium with more desirable cations; the pH being initially in the range of 4.5 to 5.0 and thereafter 2.0 to 3.5 when ion-exchanging microspheres from step (f), and (i) and recovering as separate products the two-different types of ion exchanged zeolitic microspheres.