METHOD FOR THE PRODUCTION OF COPPER-ZINC-ALUMINIUM OXIDE CATALYST FOR LOW TEMPERATURE CONVERSION OF CARBON OXIDE WITH WATER VAPOVE AND METHANOL SYNTHESIS

The method is applied in hydrogen production used in the methanol synthesis and nitrogen-processing industry. It uses cheap, readily available, scrap raw materials. According to the method, used and scrapped copper-zinc-aluminium catalyst is dissolved in nitric acid. This suspension is enriched with barium nitrate, whose amount is just enough to fully precipitate all sulphur from the catalyst, until barium sulphate is produced. Then the barium sulphate precipitate and the catalyst residues, which have failed to dissolve, are removed from the liquid phase, which is an aqueous solution of mixed copper, zinc and aluminium nitrates. The composition of this solution is adjusted by adding a solution of aluminium and copper nitrate and/or zinc nitrate, depending on the copper and zinc content in the initial scrapped catalyst. Copper-zinc-aluminium hydrocarbonate is precipitated from the copper-zinc-aluminium nitrate aqueous solution by means of sodium carbonate at pH 8.0-8.5 or a copper-ammonium solution at pH 6.4-6.8 at 50-80 degrees C. Then the precipitate is dried and calcinated at 300-400 degrees C.