Since the industrial revolution, the amount of waste generated by modern society has grown exponentially. The increased consumption of non-renewable resources has amplified the need to escalate waste management and develop materials upcycle/recovery methods.<br/>This has prompted us to develop methods towards sustainable reuptake methods in metal recovery using ion floatation. This system is designed towards selective metal recovery from dilute aqueous solutions. This method relies on the use of negatively charged surfactants to sequester positively charged metal ions through forming a surfactant:metal bond. Air is then passed through the solution, forming foam, with a high concentration of metal ions, removing the ions from the original aqueous solution. The foam can be additionally treated and the metal recovered. The process may be advanced by adding a chelating ligand to enhance ion selectivity. This would use steric and electronic considerations, such as ligand donicity, denticity, and HSAB characteristics to form select complexes with nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, and palladium. By taking advantage of the geometric configurations, electronic structure, and charge, we will be able to form [metal(chelator)]surfactant complexes that will be collected as a foam and the metal further extracted.

Chelate/surfactant interactions for selective metal recovery by ion flotation

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.