Pt recovery using Cyphos IL-101 immobilized in biopolymer capsules

Cyphos ® IL-101, a tetraalkylphosphonium chloride salt (ionic liquid, IL) has been immobilized in capsules prepared by ionotropic gelation in calcium chloride solutions. The IL content was varied in the resin between 0.29 and 1.28 mmol IL g −1. These resins have been tested for Pt recovery from HCl solutions. The equilibrium was very slightly affected by the concentration of HCl and chloride ions. The sorption isotherms were modeled using the Langmuir equation: the maximum sorption capacity was influenced by the drying of the resin but remained close to 177 mg Pt g −1 for wet resin (i.e. 0.9 mmol Pt g −1, dry weight basis, or 0.7 mol Pt mol −1 Cyphos) and 142 mg Pt g −1 for dry resin (i.e. 0.73 mmol Pt g −1, or 0.57 mol Pt mol −1 Cyphos). The presence of nitrates, nickel or copper ions (added under the form of chloride salts) did not significantly decrease sorption capacity even at concentrations as high as 5 g L −1. Conversely, zinc at the concentration of 5 g L −1, significantly decreased Pt sorption, probably due to the competition effect of chloro-anionic Zn species. This is another evidence of the ion exchange mechanism involved in the binding of hexachloroplatinate species. The kinetics are weakly affected by the agitation speed (in the range 150–350 rpm) indicating that the resistance to film diffusion is not the limiting step. The kinetics are affected by the IL content, metal concentration and more specifically the drying of the resin: intraparticle diffusion sounds to be the controlling kinetic step: the intraparticle diffusion coefficient varied between 2 × 10 −12 and 18 × 10 −11 m 2 min −1, depending on experimental conditions. Platinum can be desorbed from loaded resin using either nitric acid (5 M) or thiourea (0.1 M in 0.1 M HCl acid solution). The resin was efficiently used for three sorption/desorption cycles using nitric acid: a decrease in sorption capacity and desorption efficiency was observed beginning with the third cycle, probably due to a progressive degradation of the resin.