Thermodynamic and Kinetic Studies on Adsorption of Vanadium with Glutamic Acid

Many hydrometallurgy methods, including chemical precipitation, ion exchange, solvent extraction, and adsorption, have been used to recover vanadium from vanadium solution, but the final step of these methods involved precipitation with ammonium salts, high concentrations of which are harmful to the environment. The key point is to find a new compound to replace ammonium salts without reducing the vanadium precipitation efficiency. The adsorption process of vanadium with glutamic acid is investigated. The effects of experimental factors, including dosage of glutamic acid, reaction temperature, concentration of H₂SO₄, and reaction time, on the adsorption process are investigated. The results show that nearly 91.66% vanadium is adsorbed under the following reaction conditions: reaction temperature of 90 °C, H₂SO₄ concentration of 20 g/L, glutamic acid dosage at n(glu)/n(V) = 3.0:1, and reaction time of 60 min. The response surface methodology is applied to optimize the reaction conditions. The analysis results indicate that the reaction temperature has the greatest effect on the adsorption efficiency of vanadium and the influence of experimental factors follows the order: reaction temperature > dosage of glutamic acid to vanadium > reaction time > concentration of H₂SO₄. The pseudo-second-order model is selected to describe well the adsorption kinetic behavior, and the thermodynamic analysis results indicate that the adsorption process of vanadium is unspontaneous and exothermic. The results will be useful for further applications of glutamic acid, and they provide a bright future for vanadium recovery.