Separation and Recovery of Silver(I) Ions from Base Metal Ions by Thiourea- or Urea-Formaldehyde Chelating Resin

Abstract

In the present work, thiourea-formaldehyde (TF) and urea-formaldehyde (UF) chelating resins have been synthesized and they have been used in the adsorptions of Ag(I), Cu(II), and Zn(II) metal ions by batch and column methods. The effect of initial acidity of Ag(I) solution and the adsorption capacities of TF and UF resins by batch method and the separation of Ag(I) ions from Cu(II) and Zn(II) base metal ions by the column method were examined experimentally. The adsorption capacities of TF and UF resins were found as 58.14 and 47.39mg Ag(I)/g by batch method and 30.7 and 4.66 mg Ag(I)/g, 0.80 and 0.121mg Cu(II)/g, and under 0.002 mg Zn(II)/g by the column method, respectively. It was found that Ag(I) ions showed higher affinity towards TF resin than UF resin, compared with Cu(II) or Zn(II) ions, and Ag(I) could be separated more effectively by TF resin from Cu(II) and Zn(II) ions.