Highly-efficient separation and recovery of ruthenium from electroplating wastewater by a mesoporous silica-polymer based adsorbent

To separate ruthenium(III) from simulated electroplating wastewater, a kind of porous material, TRPO/SiO 2 –P, was used. TRPO/SiO 2 –P exhibited unique advantages compared with other materials, such as high selectivity ( SF Ru/other metals >35), large adsorption capacity (54.6 mg g −1 ), and fast adsorption kinetics (<3 h for equilibrium). The adsorption towards ruthenium was fitted with pseudo-second-order and Langmuir model. Moreover, ruthenium was efficiently separated from other metal ions from simulated electroplating wastewater by column experiments. Finally, SEM-EDS, XPS , FT-IR, and NMR study demonstrated the strong interaction between phosphorus functional groups (P =O) and ruthenium(III) during the whole adsorption process and meantime anion groups (NO 3 − and NO 2 − ) were involved to maintain charge balance. In brief, TRPO/SiO 2 –P has significant potential in the recovery of ruthenium from electroplating wastewater.