![Sample our Physical Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110819/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Physical-Sciences.jpg"})
Abstract
Poly(oxyethylene)-9-nonylphenyl ether (PONPE-9) was employed for cloud point extraction of gold(III) ion and its phase separation behavior under different experimental conditions was evaluated. The effect on extraction efficiency, including equilibration time, ratio of PONPE-9 to gold, settling temperature, and pH of the solution, was demonstrated. The results indicate that PONPE-9 can be utilized for the extraction of gold in a manner akin to previous work using PONPE-7.5. The optimum experimental results obtained were applied to design a process scheme, pH switching via CPE, to overcome the drawback of the difficulty of separating gold from a gold-entrapped surfactant. The utility of the proposed scheme was demonstrated through the application of recovering gold(III) ion from a multimetal solution. Recoveries of greater than 63% of gold were obtained. Even if this is not so high a percentage recovery, it indicates the feasibility of the process scheme. On the other hand, it proved to be an even simpler and easy method for recovering gold from the leaching solution of printed substrates without spending harmful organic solvent.
Acknowledgments
Financial support for this work was partially provided by National Metal and Technology Center Grant MT-S-43-MET-58-082-G. In addition, scholarship support was received from Chulalongkorn University and Rangsit University. The authors thank to Dr. Shigendo Akita (Nagoya Municipal Industrial Research Institute, Nagoya, Japan) for his hospitality and useful advice in the early stages of this project.
