Ammonium metatungstate production equipment according to the different stages of production and different methods may be variety, such as pyrolysis method of AMT production, a reactor, rotary kiln, high-speed centrifugal spray drying equipment or spray atomization drying equipment may be used; In addition, other pyrolysis equipments include microwave oven, plate multiple hearth furnace and tubular multiple hearth furnace. The direct recovery AMT can be more than 95% when using tubular multiple hearth furnace.

 

At present, the pyrolysis equipment for producing ammonium metatungstate is mainly rotary calciner, which is a rotary kiln. A rotary kiln is a pyroprocessing device used to raise materials to a high temperature (calcination) in a continuous process. The kiln is a cylindrical vessel, inclined slightly to the horizontal, which is rotated slowly about its axis. The material to be processed is fed into the upper end of the cylinder. As the kiln rotates, material gradually moves down towards the lower end, and may undergo a certain amount of stirring and mixing. Hot gases pass along the kiln, sometimes in the same direction as the process material (co-current), but usually in the opposite direction (counter-current). The hot gases may be generated in an external furnace, or may be generated by a flame inside the kiln. Such a flame is projected from a burner-pipe (or "firing pipe") which acts like a large bunsen burner. The fuel for this may be gas, oil, pulverized petroleum coke or pulverized coal. 

Ammonium metatungstate produced by ion exchange method will probably use ion exchange resin, crystallizer, or spray dryer and other production equipments. Alkali decomposition furnace is mainly used for decomposing tungsten ore during the preparation of AMT to dissolve tungsten into a solution. A plate and frame filter press is the most fundamental design, and many now refer it as a "membrane filter plate". This type of filter press consists of many plates and frames assembled alternately with the supports of a pair of rails. It is used for the impurity removal process of sodium tungstate for preparing high purity sodium in the APT preparation.

Ion exchange colum is used for removal of S, Mo, P, As, Ca, Cu and Sn and other impurities. Co-current deionization refers to the original downflow process where both input water and regeneration chemicals enter at the top of an ion exchange column and exit at the bottom. Co-current operating costs are comparatively higher than counter-current deionization because of the additional usage of regenerants. Because regenerant chemicals are dilute when they encounter the bottom or finishing resins in an ion exchange column, the product quality is lower than a similarly sized counter-flow column. Spray drying is a method of producing a dry powder from a liquid or slurry by rapidly drying with a hot gas. This is the preferred method of drying of many thermally-sensitive materials such as foods and pharmaceuticals.

The surface decarburized WC-Co gradient cemented carbide based on impregnation liquid of ammonium metatungstate solution (AMT) can greatly enhance the comprehensive performance of cemented carbide; and with the simple process, easy to operate, it is suitable for industrial production. The preparation steps are as follows: 

1. Put the conventional WC-Co carbide under vacuum conditions at 100~500°C for dewaxing, then to carry out presintering in 800~900°C to obtain presintering billet with a certain strength and porosity; 

2. After them, the sample is dipped into ammonium metatungstate solution to form concentration gradient of AMT with a certain depth and distribution from the surface layer to the inner; 

3. Then, after the sample is dried, put it in vacuum furnace for sintering along with slow heating in low temperature stage, to make the ammonium metatungstate decomposed, which the broken down products (tungsten oxide) will react with surface substance of WC, Co, then we can get surface decarburized WC-Co gradient cemented carbide. 

 

Cemented carbide is a kind of metal ceramic tool material which prepared by powder metallurgy method by taking refractory metal compounds (such as WC, TiC, TaC, NbC, etc.) as the matrix, and transition of metals (like Co, Fe and Ni) as bonding phase. Due to its high strength, hardness and elastic modulus, wear resistance, corrosion resistance, low thermal expansion coefficient and stable chemical properties, etc, it in has important application in metal cutting, wood processing, oil drilling in mines, composite materials processing and other respects. Conventional class of WC-Co carbide is uniformly consisted with two phases of WC and binding phase, however it exists contrary relationship between the hardness, wear resistance and strong toughness. The WC - Co gradient cemented carbide structure with high wear-resistance and hardness surface, toughness core part was developed in the 1980s, while the appearance of surface decarburized WC-Co gradient cemented carbide makes it easier to control surface eta phase formation depth, and thereby to prepare the superior performance of WC-Co carbide. 

It is found that the supported ammonium metatungstate (AMT) catalysts with the carriers of silicon dioxide, titanium dioxide and aluminium oxide have exhibited good catalytic activity for the synthesis of ortho - light anisole by gas - phase reaction of catechol and methanol. Among them, the AMT / silicon dioxide catalyst with tungsten loading of 7.9% has the best catalytic performance; in addition, the species with weak acidity and alkalinity which formed by the partial decomposition of ammonium metatungstate in the calcination process has been indicated to be the active center of the catalytic reaction.


 

Preparation of silicon dioxide supported ammonium metatungstate catalyst is using the traditional impregnation method, which is dipping carrier of silicon dioxide with ammonium metatungstate (AMT) aqueous solution in equal volume, followed by drying at 363 K for 6 hours, and then calcining at a certain temperature for 3 hours under air atmosphere to obtain SiO₂/AMT catalyst. The study found that the calcination temperature affects the catalytic activity of silicon dioxide supported ammonium metatungstate catalyst; while the catalysts obtained at calcination temperatures of 533K and 573K showed the highest catechol conversion rate and selectivity of adjacent hydroxyl benzene methyl ether within 10 hours, which is respectively maintaining at about 97% and 90%.

 

Moreover, with the extension of reaction time, the activity of silicon dioxide supported ammonium metatungstate catalyst is decreased slowly, which is mainly attributed to the carbon deposition on the catalyst. The study of regeneration of deactivated SiO₂ / AMT catalyst has proved that both the alcohol washed purging and low temperature (533k) calcination could not obviously restore the activity of the catalyst, and also the regenerated catalyst has stability no better than the fresh catalyst. This may be due to the change of the properties (including the acidity and alkalinity) of active centers on catalyst surface after high temperature regeneration treatment, and to make the easier deactivation of regenerated catalyst.