Patent ID: 7767609

Claim:
A method for recovering reforming catalyst comprising: obtaining spent reforming catalysts; immersing the spent reforming catalysts with different degrees of aging into a light solution to obtain immersed catalysts allowing the light solution to enter pores in the spent reforming catalysts; immersing the immersed catalysts into a heavy solution having a density greater than the light solution and replacing the light solution in pores in the immersed catalysts with the heavy solution to increase a pseudo-skeletal density of the immersed catalysts, so that the light solution is removed from the pores of the immersed catalysts; and allowing the immersed catalysts to settle in the heavy solution to obtain settled catalysts having allowed the immersed catalysts to have different settling velocities to obtain settled catalysts, so that the reforming catalysts with different degrees of aging are layered and classified into distinct layers and less aged reforming catalyst is settled directly upon severely aged reforming catalyst.