Improved process to prepare high-purity anhydrous potassium fluoride from wet process phosphoric acid

The production of potassium fluoride (KF) through recovering fluorine from wet process phosphoric acid (WPA) is very attractive as it not only makes a profitable use of the fluorine resource but also purifies WPA to some extent. The current route to prepare KF from WPA was assessed and significantly improved. Both the purity and yield of the KF product are increased with the upgraded process. Key improvements include (1) the recovery of the KF wrapped in the silicon dioxide filter cake with controlled amount of water and (2) the removal of unreacted KOH and meta aluminate impurities in the KF mother liquor with controlled amount of fluosilicic acid solution. The suitable dosage of the wash water and fluosilicic acid solution were recommended, which can be practically controlled by measuring the density and pH of KF mother liquor, respectively. Repeated experiments have verified that the improved process, compared to the current one, successfully increases the purity of KF product from 96 to 99% and the yield from 78 to 93%.