Copper is used to remove vanadium from crude TiCl4in titanium sponge production which produces large wash water containing vanadium and copper. The precipitate containing copper and vanadium was formed from the wash water by oxidization and neutralization treatment. The vanadium in the precipitate can be recovered by NaOH leaching, after that, the cake containing copper was formed. The leaching of copper from the cake was investigated by H2SO4. Under the optimum leaching conditions (58% H2SO4leaching for 30 min. at room temperature with a pulp density of 28.6%), the copper leaching could reach 90.4%.

The recovery of vanadium and copper from the precipitate and the waste water formed in the removing vanadium from crude TiCl4 with copper wire was investigated. For the processing of the precipitate, the brief flow includes dechlorinating, H2SO4 leaching copper, crystallization blue vitriod, as well as NaOH leaching vanadium, followed by ion exchange enrichment vanadium; the copper and vanadium leaching percent was 88.4% and 84.3%, respectively. For the processing of the waste water, the coprecipitation process was used, after that the discharged wastewater could meet with the National Standards. The precipitate formed in coprecipitation process was first leached by NaOH solution for recovery of vanadium, and then the leach cake containing copper was leached by H2SO4 solution for recovery of copper; the overall vanadium and copper recovery was 79.5% and 86.8%, respectively.