An innovative use of electrochemically modified three‐dimensional carbon felt for a rapid recovery of gold from diluted chloride solution

Abstract

AbstractBACKGROUNDThis study presents the novel use of modified Shipley‐activated carbon felt in an electrogenerative process via flow‐through batch recycle cell to recover gold, Au(III), from chloride solutions.RESULTSThe recovery of Au(III) was conducted in a batch recycle cell equipped with three‐dimensional activated carbon felt as a cathode and zinc as an anode. Several initial Au(III) concentrations (50, 100, 250, and 500 mg L−1) and different types of cathode materials (carbon felt and reticulated vitreous carbon) were used to evaluate the cell performance. Both the electrodes were at the same size (2.0 cm × 5.3 cm × 0.3 cm) and volume (3.18cm3). At optimum conditions, total Au(III) recovery was achieved with the use of activated carbon felt at a concentration of 500 mg L−1 within 30 min of operation with a flow rate of 50 mL min−1. This was achieved at a fractional conversion of 1.00, where all the 2894 mol of Au were fully deposited at the cathode. This can be ascribed to the massive surface area and high porosity of carbon felt. Carbon felt has a specific surface area of 1229 cm2g−1 and a porosity of 94.81%. The morphological and compositional studies of the electrodeposited Au(III) onto activated carbon felt cathode material were also carried out.CONCLUSIONIt is confirmed that Au(III) has been successfully deposited by cathodic reduction of Au(III) ions. © 2021 Society of Chemical Industry (SCI).