Rapid Reduction and Recovery of Au(III) in Water by Hollow Polym‐phenylenediamine Nanospheres

Abstract

To quickly and efficiently recover precious metal gold from electronic waste products, we synthesized a novel hollow polym‐phenylenediamine (PmPD) nanosphere using the sacrificial template method and applied this materials to reduce and recover Au(III) in an aqueous solution. Experimental results show that the as‐prepared hollow PmPD has high selectivity and treatment capacity for Au(III), and can selectively reduce Au(III) from mixture metals solutions, including Cu2+, Zn2+, Ni2+, Cd2+, and Au(III) mixed solutions. Under room temperature and solution pH 4.0, the maximum treatment capacity of hollow PmPD for Au(III) reaches 1185.18 mg/g in 10 min of equilibrium time. The reduction ability of hollow PmPD remains stable in a pH range of 1.0 to 10.0 and under an ambient temperature ranging from 0 °C to 50 °C. Hollow PmPD can be regenerated via simple NaHSO3 solution washing, and its performance remains stable after repeated recycling. The satisfactory results obtained in treating the computer CPU leaching solution suggest that the hollow PmPD has broad application prospects in recovering gold from e‐waste.