Rice paper adsorbent for gold recovery

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Environmental Science
• Green Chemistry

Background:

• Growing global demand for gold necessitates sustainable recovery methods from industrial waste.
• Current gold adsorbents often involve complex fabrication and petroleum-based chemicals, posing economic and environmental challenges.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a sustainable, cost-effective, and high-performance gold adsorbent from biomass.
• To investigate the transformation of rice paper into an efficient gold recovery material.

Main Methods:

• Facile aqueous-phase chemical modification (hydrazination) of rice paper (RP) to create hydrazine-functionalized RP (Hz-RP).
• Characterization of Hz-RP's mesoporous structure and mechanical integrity.
• Evaluation of Hz-RP's gold adsorption capacity, selectivity, and kinetics from complex solutions like electronic waste leachate.

Main Results:

• Hz-RP exhibits a stratified mesoporous structure and excellent mechanical stability in water.
• Hz-RP demonstrates rapid, effective, and selective gold recovery through collaborative chemisorption and reduction.
• The adsorbent outperforms many existing gold adsorbents and allows for high-purity gold recovery via calcination.

Conclusions:

• Biomass-derived Hz-RP provides a sustainable and efficient pathway for gold recovery from industrial waste.
• This method supports a circular resource economy by valorizing biomass and recovering valuable metals.
• The Hz-RP-based process is economically and environmentally beneficial for gold recovery from electronic waste.