Biosorption of gold from alkaline solution using biomass wastes.

使用生物质废物从碱性溶液中生物吸附金。

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-04864
• 负责人: Alam, Shafiq
• 金额: $ 0.77万
• 依托单位: University of Saskatchewan
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2014-01-01 至 2015-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=566792
• 关键词: Biosorption; gold; alkaline; solution; using

Gold is one of the most expensive precious metals that are widely used not only as traditional jewelleries but also as useful components in a variety of well known advanced materials such as electrical and electronic devices, catalysts and medical instruments. On one hand the availability of gold is very limited; on the other hand, a substantial proportion of this valuable metal is generally discarded in the form of aqueous by-products during metal refining as well as the disposal of obsolete electronic devices. Thus, effective and economical recovery processes related to gold extraction/recycling from primary and secondary resources require urgent development. Recently, sorption processes based on low cost and widely available biomass materials is considered one of the most promising sustainable technologies that can be used for the recovery of gold from dilute solutions. In the last 3 years, we have made major advancements in our biosorption research, publishing more than 30 papers in refereed high impact-factored international journals, such as Bioressource Technology, Chemical Engineering Journal, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Green Chemistry, Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Hydrometallurgy, Solvent Extraction and Ion Exchange, RSC Advances, etc. We have also published over 10 refereed conference proceeding papers related to this research in world-class conferences such as TMS, CIM/MetSoc, IEX, ALTA, etc. With this tremendous progress made in biosorption research within the last 3 years, we are now well prepared to move forward to extend our research in this field of hydrometallurgy. The objectives of the proposed research program would be to lay a scientific foundation for the development of cost-effective, sustainable and efficient recovery processes for extracting gold from dilute solution using biomaterials prepared from biomass wastes. The currently most adopted technique for leaching gold from gold ore remains leaching in aqueous alkaline cyanide solutions. Recently, Barrick Gold Corporation adopted alkaline thiosulphate processing of gold in their successful demo-plant operation, although thiosulphate cannot completely replace cyanide, it could provide an alternative to cyanide. Following our successful research work on gold recovery from acidic solution through our previous Discovery Grant, in our proposed research we plan to extend our work to the recovery of gold from alkaline solutions of cyanide and thiosulphate, in order to meet industry’s urgent needs. In this research, gold will be recovered from a dilute alkaline solution in a batch reactor using chemically modified cellulosic biomaterials. Initially commercially available pure cellulose, after pre-treatment with sulphuric acid followed by grafting unique functional groups, will be used to develop a kinetic and adsorption isotherm model. Later bioadsorbents will be prepared from cellulosic biomass wastes such as waste paper, waste cotton and waste wood/saw dust that will be tested for gold sorption from real solution. Those biomass wastes are abundantly available and will be a cheap source of raw materials for making bioadsorbents. Proper use of such biomass wastes as value-added products will not only reduce the volume of wastes being generated every day, but will also have high end value to the gold mining industry as this cheap bioadsorbent will have superior performance over the traditionally used activated carbon. Both mining and waste management companies will benefit from this research. The proposed research program will train 4 M.Sc., 1 Ph.D., 5 post-docs and 4 undergraduate students in the area of extractive metallurgy.

黄金是最昂贵的贵金属之一，不仅被广泛用作传统珠宝，而且还用作各种众所周知的高级材料（例如电气和电子设备，催化剂和医疗仪器）中的有用组件。一方面，黄金的可用性非常有限。另一方面，这种有价值的金属的很大一部分通常以金属炼油过程中的水性副产品的形式丢弃，并处置过时的电子设备。这是与初级和二级资源中的黄金提取/回收相关的有效和经济恢复过程需要紧急发展。最近，基于低成本和广泛可用的生物质材料的吸附过程被认为是最有前途的可持续技术之一，可用于从稀溶液中恢复黄金。 In the last 3 years, we have made major advancements in our biosorption research, publishing more than 30 papers in referenced high impact-factored international journals, such as Bioressource Technology, Chemical Engineering Journal, Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research, Green Chemistry, Journal of Chemical & Engineering Data, Journal of Hazardous Materials, Hydrometallurgy, Solvent Extraction and Ion Exchange, RSC Advances, etc. We have also published over 10 referenced conference proceeding与TMS，CIM/METSOC，IEX，ALTA等世界一流会议中的这项研究有关的论文。在过去3年内，在生物吸附研究中取得了巨大进步，我们现在已经准备好向前迈进，以扩大在此水文铝领域的研究。拟议的研究计划的目标是为开发具有成本效益，可持续和有效的恢复过程的科学基础，以使用从生物量废物中制备的生物材料从稀释溶液中提取黄金。目前最采用的金矿领导金的技术仍然是在碱性氰化物溶液中行走的。最近，巴里克黄金公司（Barrick Gold Corporation）在成功的演示植物运营中采用了含酒精的硫代硫酸盐加工，尽管硫代硫酸盐不能完全取代氰化物，但它可以提供氰化物的替代品。在我们通过以前的发现赠款中从酸性解决方案中恢复黄金的成功研究工作之后，我们计划将工作扩展到从氰化物和硫代硫酸盐的酒精解决方案中恢复的工作，以满足行业的紧急需求。在这项研究中，将使用化学改良的纤维素生物材料从批处理反应器中的稀醇溶液中回收黄金。最初，在用硫酸进行预处理之后，将纤维化纤维素进行了预处理后，然后将其植入独特的官能团进行治疗后，将通过纤维素生物量废物（例如废纸，废料棉和废木/锯尘）来制备后来的生物吸附物，以从真实溶液中测试黄金焊接。这些生物量浪费大量可用，将是生物添加物质的廉价原材料来源。适当使用此类生物质废物作为增值产品不仅会减少每天产生的废物量，而且还将对黄金开采行业具有很高的最终价值，因为这种廉价的生物添加物将比传统使用的活性碳具有优越的性能。采矿和废物管理公司都将从这项研究中受益。拟议的研究计划将在提取冶金学领域培训4 M.Sc.，1个博士学位，5名博士后和4名本科生。