Sequential recovery of gold and copper from bioleached wastewater using ion exchange resins

Jong Won Choi, Myung Hee Song, John Kwame Bediako, Yeoung Sang Yun

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

83 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Numerous studies have sought to address the extraction of metals from printed circuit boards by employing bioleaching process. However, separation and recovery of the bioleached metals have always been a bottleneck. Herein, we demonstrate effective recovery of bioleached Au and Cu via selective separation using ion exchange resins. pH-edge experiments revealed high affinity of Amberjet™ 4200 resin towards Au (adsorption capacity > 98%) over the entire pH range from pH 2–10, whereas Amberlite IRC-86 resin recorded very high Cu adsorption at around pH 5. Therefore, a two-step sequential process was designed for the effective separation and recovery of Au and Cu. In the 1st step, Au was completely recovered by using the Amberjet™ 4200 at the natural pH of 7.5. Subsequently, the Au-free solution was adjusted to pH 5 and Cu was recovered by using Amberlite IRC-86 (2nd step). Consequently, 98.7% Au and 78.9% Cu were successfully recovered. Therefore, this study provides a technical guideline for the selective recovery of Au and Cu from bioleached wastewater, which promotes effective waste minimization and efficient resource recovery.

Original languageEnglish
Article number115167
JournalEnvironmental Pollution
Volume266
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Nov 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Adsorption
  • Bioleaching
  • Ion exchange resin
  • Recovery
  • Wastewater

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