Recovery of rhodium from glacial acetic acid manufacturing effluent using cellulose-based sorbent

[Display omitted] •DTC-modified cellulose (DMC) was explored for RhIII recovery from acidic solutions.•The RhIII sorption capacity of DMC was higher than that of reported sorbents.•DMC was efficient in the sorption of RhIII from acetic acid manufacturing effluent.•RhIII was sorbed onto DMC through a chemisorption mechanism.•A process for the post-sorption recovery of Rh in its elemental form is proposed. Rhodium (Rh) is a rare and highly demanded metal in metallurgy, making its efficient recovery from waste streams essential. However, there is a lack of detailed studies on the recovery of Rh from acidic waste effluents using biosorbents. This study aims to extract RhIII from acidic effluents using dithiocarbamate-modified cellulose (DMC) as a biosorbent, and subsequently recover the extracted Rh in its elemental form (Rh0). The parameters affecting the RhIII extractability of DMC, such as solution pH, acid concentration, Cl− ion concentration, contact time, and sorption capacity at different temperatures, were optimized. The sorption kinetics of RhIII onto DMC was best fitted to the pseudo-second-order (PSO) model, the equilibrium sorption isotherm data fitted well with the Langmuir model. DMC had a maximum sorption capacity of 2.57 mmol g−1, which is substantially higher than that reported in previous studies. Waste effluent (Rh-containing glacial acetic acid) obtained from the acetic acid manufacturing industry was used to assess the applicability of DMC in capturing RhIII from a real sample. DMC was capable of sorbing approximately 90 % of RhIII from the real sample of Rh-containing glacial acidic acid. The sorbed RhIII was recovered in elemental form (Rh0) by incineration of RhIII-loaded DMC, yielding >99 %. The sorption of RhIII onto DMC followed a chemisorption mechanism that was confirmed by sorption experiments, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) analyses. This study demonstrates the applicability of DMC in the efficient recovery of Rh from waste streams.