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

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

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

2020

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

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.

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