An integrated process for separation and recovery of tantalum from spent TaCrTi sputtering targets by hydrometallurgical methods

In order to recover valued metals from spent TaCrTi sputtering targets, an integrated hydrometallurgical method including leaching, solvent extraction and precipitation was proposed. Most of impurities were firstly removed by H2SO4, Ta and Ti then enriched in the leaching residues were dissolved by H2SO4 mixed with HF. 99% of Ta dissolved in the solution was separated by extraction with tri-butyl-phosphate (TBP) and stripped by 3.9 M NH4F...