Ammonium Maratungstate Prepared from Ammonium Tungstate by Ion Exchange

At the present time, crystalline ammonium metatungstate (AMT) is being produced from APT. Although this process overcomes some of the disadvantages of the-prior art, in practice it is somewhat difficult to control for maximum conversion. As a consequence, on crystallization of AMT from solution, the residual APT must be removed in order to produce completely water-soluble AMT products. Another disadvantage of this process is its intermittent batch nature, requiring baking, digesting, filtering and concentrating of solutions before crystallization. On a production scale, such stepwise operations tend to be time consuming and costly.

ammonium metatungstate AMT image

As an improvement over the above process, a method of ion exchange for producing ammonium maratungstate directly from ammonium tungstate (AT) solution is came up with. AT solution is contacted with a liquid extraction system consisting of Di-Z-ethyhexyl phosphoric acid (D-2-EHPA)-tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP)- kerosene, which extracts ammonium ion and rapidly lowers the pH to the AMT-forming region. The solution is then digested to allow formation of AMT.

While this method substantially avoids the formation of APT and is amenable to continuous processing, it has not found widespread use due to a tendency toward instability of the organic system, and resultant formation of insoluble phospho-tungstates in amounts up to percent or more of the total solid product, depending upon the conditions of formation.

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