Selective recovery of Ag(I) coordination anion from simulate nickel electrolyte using corn stalk based adsorbent modified by ammonia-thiosemicarbazide.

In nickel electrolyte, Ag(I) was present at trace level concentration (10-20 mg L(-1)) and existed in the form of AgCli(1-i) coordination anion, instead of Ag(+) positive ion usually in several sources. In the present study, TSC-NH3-OCS adsorbent based on natural corn stalk modified by ammonia (NH3)-thiosemicarbazide (TSC) was synthesized and characterized using some instrumental techniques. The TSC-NH3-OCS adsorbent could selectively adsorb Ag(I) as AgCl(i)(1-i) coordination anion from the Ag(I)-Cu(II)-Ni(II) simulate nickel electrolyte, especially in the case of the very high levels of Cu(II) and Ni(II), which significantly outperforms the commercial available resins. The adsorption mechanism was believed to be electrostatic interaction of the protonated bands of AgCl4(3-) with protonated thiol form of the thioamide units by FTIR and XPS analysis. The maximum adsorption capacity in the Ag(I) single and Ag(I)-Cu(II)-Ni(II) ternary system were obtained and calculated as 153.54 and 46.69 mg g(-1), respectively. The reasons that the maximum adsorption capacity of AgCl(i)(1-i) from the single and ternary system varied widely could be explained by adsorption kinetic and thermodynamic results. In addition, three successive sorption/desorption cycle runs from ternary system were performed which indicated that the TSC-NH3-OCS adsorbent has a good performance for recovery Ag(I) from simulate nickel electrolyte.