Numerous studies have sought to address the extraction of metals from printed circuit boards by employing bioleaching process. However, separation and recovery of the bioleached metals have always been a bottleneck. Herein, we demonstrate effective recovery of bioleached Au and Cu via selective separation using ion exchange resins. pH-edge experiments revealed high affinity of Amberjet™ 4200 resin towards Au (adsorption capacity > 98%) over the entire pH range from pH 2–10, whereas Amberlite IRC-86 resin recorded very high Cu adsorption at around pH 5. Therefore, a two-step sequential process was designed for the effective separation and recovery of Au and Cu. In the 1st step, Au was completely recovered by using the Amberjet™ 4200 at the natural pH of 7.5. Subsequently, the Au-free solution was adjusted to pH 5 and Cu was recovered by using Amberlite IRC-86 (2nd step). Consequently, 98.7% Au and 78.9% Cu were successfully recovered. Therefore, this study provides a technical guideline for the selective recovery of Au and Cu from bioleached wastewater, which promotes effective waste minimization and efficient resource recovery.

已经进行了许多研究来解决通过采用生物浸出工艺从印刷电路板上提取金属的问题。然而，生物浸出金属的分离和回收一直是瓶颈。在本文中，我们证明了使用离子交换树脂通过选择性分离有效回收了生物浸出的Au和Cu。pH边缘实验表明，在2-10的整个pH范围内，Amberjet™4200树脂对Au（吸附能力> 98％）具有很高的亲和力，而Amberlite IRC-86树脂在大约5的pH下具有很高的Cu吸附性。设计了一个两步顺序的过程，以有效分离和回收金和铜。在第一步中，使用Amberjet™4200在7.5的自然pH值下完全回收​​了Au。后来，将无金溶液的pH调节至5，并使用Amberlite IRC-86回收铜（第二步）。因此，成功回收了98.7％的Au和78.9％的Cu。因此，本研究为从生物浸出废水中选择性回收金和铜提供了技术指导，从而促进了废物的有效最小化和资源的有效回收。