Abstract: In the butyl octanol unit，the waste rhodium catalysts contain hundreds to thousands milligrams of rhodium per kilogram.High efficient recovery of rhodium is necessary due to its high cost.The recovery methods in currently reports have several disadvantages.Some of them cause high loss of rhodium，such as extraction，adsorption separation，and incineration. Some have low efficiency，such as liquid digestion.To solve these problems，a new recovery process by combining roasting and liquid digestion method was explored and the roasting process was studied especially.Result showed that，the waste rhodium catalysts were first concentrated to the rhodium slag by distillation.Then appropriate amount of silica was added to the rhodium slag，and the mixture was roasted under certain programmed temperatures.Finally the rhodium ash was liquid-digested to obtain the soluble rhodium salt. Results showed that the recovery rate of rhodium was greater than 99% in the whole process.

Key words: waste catalyst containing rhodium, roasting, rhodium recovery