Producing Ammonium Metatungstate from Ammonium Tungstate by Digestion in Silica

At present both ammonium paratungstate (APT) and ammonium metatungstate (AMT) are being used as tungsten sources in the catalyst industry. Since APT has a limited solubility in water (about 2 to 3 percent at room temperature), thus the user should converts APT to a more soluble peroxytungstate form by means of reaction with hydrogen peroxide in order to prepare the catalyst. While AMT is highly water soluble, and thus no need be converted, it is in general more expensive than APT, due to the complexity and/or low yields of processes for producing it.

A process for producing ammonium metatungstate (AMT) from ammonium tungstate (AT) solution is described which involves the addition of about 3.6 percent by weight of silica to an AT solution, digestion for at least about 4 hours at a temperature of at least about 98°C, followed by filtration to remove the silica from the AMT solution. Typically about 0.4 percent by weight of silica remains after filtering. The resulting AMT solution may be further processed to recover solid AMT, such as by evaporation or spray drying.

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