Selective adsorption and recovery of Au(III) from three kinds of acidic systems by persimmon residual based bio-sorbent: A method for gold recycling from e-wastes

• The material was low cost and environmentally friend.
• PPF resin showed good selectivity in of HCl, HNO3 and aqua regia solutions.
• Adsorbed gold can be recovered with a purity of 99.9%.
• A method of adsorption–reduction was provided for gold recycling from e-wastes.

A low cost bio-sorbent, named “PPF resin”, was prepared by crosslinking the persimmon residual with formaldehyde. The adsorption behavior of PPF resin towards Au(III) from varied HCl and HNO3 concentration solutions was studied. PPF resin could adsorb almost complete Au(III) from high acidic systems. The influence of dilution ratio, solid–liquid ratio and time towards Au(III) from aqua regia leached PCBs liquor was censored in detail by batch and continuous adsorption methods. The PPF resin before and after adsorption was characterized by FT-IR, XRD and XPS spectra which provided evidences for the reduction of Au(III) to Au(0) with a proposed mechanism of Au(III) adsorption–reduction process. After saturated column adsorption of 0.1 g PPF resin, 0.0506 g gold (purity: 99.9%) was obtained by the method of incineration. The present results provide a new approach for gold recovery from the secondary resources.