Selective Recovery of Platinum Group Metals from Waste Streams
This community develops chemical methods to extract and separate precious metals—primarily platinum, palladium, and gold—from spent automotive catalysts, electronic waste, and industrial wastewater.
The work centers on designing porous organic materials, such as covalent organic frameworks and metal-organic frameworks, to selectively capture these metals from complex liquid solutions. Researchers also employ solvent extraction and adsorption techniques to isolate specific elements from mixed waste streams. Analytical methods, including inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry and atomic absorption spectrometry, are used to determine metal concentrations and verify recovery efficiency. The focus is on creating efficient, selective processes that can handle the varied chemical matrices found in end-of-life electronics and spent industrial catalysts.
The largest share of the community's output is found in platinum research, accounting for 3.9% of all platinum research, and 2,376 papers here. Palladium research also represents a 3.9% share, with 2,137 papers. Nickel research contributes 2,137 papers, representing a 2.1% share of that element's total research.
The community comprises 30,164 papers, publishing most frequently in Analytica Chimica Acta, Analytical Chemistry, and Spectrochimica Acta Part B: Atomic Spectroscopy.
Recent work continues to focus on the selective recovery of gold and palladium from electronic waste and wastewater using covalent organic frameworks and other porous organic materials, with specific attention to improving efficiency and selectivity in acidic or complex aqueous environments.