Recovery of silver using adsorption gels prepared from microalgal residue immobilized with functional groups containing sulfur or nitrogen

Abstract

Although biodiesel oil extracted from microalgae attracts much attention as one of the most promising green energies, its high production cost is a big problem, impeding its extensive use. In order to lower the production cost, the effective use of microalgal residue after extracting biofuel was investigated as a feed material of functional materials. In the present work, a new adsorbent for silver(I) was prepared by immobilizing functional groups of polyethylene-polyamine or dithiooxamide, which exhibita high affinity for soft Lewis acids such as silver(I) ions. Their adsorption behaviors for silver(I) were investigated from aqueous nitrate and acidothiourea media. The effects of the concentrations of nitrate and thiourea, as well as of sulfuric acid, were qualitatively interpreted. From the study of adsorption isotherms on these gels, they were found to exhibita higher adsorption capacity than the majority of those reported to date.