Novel Styrene-Based Polyamine Sorbent for Efficient Selective Separation of Molybdenum

Tungsten (W) and molybdenum (Mo) are important strategic resources but the two coexist in both primary ore and waste. Before a single metal product is obtained, it is often necessary to separate the two. In this work, we reported two new polyamine resins (D301@PA and D301@TA), which can be obtained by an assembled amine (primary amine or tertiary amine) and traditional D301 resin by the dipping method. Then, the sorption experiments with the amine resins were carried out, and the selectivity and sorption capacity of the two new polyamine resins for MoS₄ ^2- have been significantly improved. Among them, D301@TA showed the highest sorption capacity of 414 mg·g^-1 and a separation factor of 108. Finally, the sorption mechanism can be inferred through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis, and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS); the Cl^- ions in the amine resin and the MoS₄ ^2- ions were subjected to ion exchange. This work provides a green and efficient approach for separating tungsten and molybdenum.