The effect of functional group structure on the elution of metal cyanide complexes from ion-exchange resins

Abstract

Previous investigations have established that the thiocyanate anion and the zinc cyanide complex are suitable eluants for the simultaneous recovery of metal cyanide complexes from ion-exchange resins. However, the effect of the ionic density of the resin and the stereochemistry of the functional group on metal recovery has never been systematically studied. The present study investigated the elution properties of five experimental resins that have the same type of resin matrix but contain different aliphatic amino functional groups. It is shown that ammonium thiocyanate is not a suitable eluant because iron and zinc are not completely eluted from any of the resins studied. It has been propos..