Recyclable poly-m-phenylenediamine selectively recovers gold from acidic solutions

With the rapid economic development, electronic waste is increasing year by year, but its recovery rate is low and there are few materials for selective and efficient recovery of gold from low concentration gold-containing solutions. Therefore, we designed and prepared a polymer nanomaterial poly(m-phenylenediamine) (PmPD) containing a large number of reducing groups. The material is simple to prepare and can selectively recover low concentrations of gold from acidic solutions (pH = 3.0) within 60 min. In addition, the material can be used to recover gold from river water, lake water and tap water. It has good selective recovery for both low (10 mg g−1) and high (50 mg g−1) concentration gold solutions in the presence of different metal ions. PmPD has some redox ability to recover 1490 mg g−1 of Au(III). In addition, PmPD has a good economic effect because it can be recycled many times.