Hydrometallurgical Recovery of Precious Metals and Removal of Hazardous Metals Using Persimmon Tannin and Persimmon Wastes

Novel and environmentally benign adsorbents were prepared via a simple sulfuric acid treatment process using the wastes of astringent persimmon, a type of biomass waste, along with persimmon tannin extract which is currently employed for the tanning of leather and as natural dyes and paints. The effectiveness of these new biosorbents was exemplified with regards to hydrometallurgical and environmental engineering applications for the adsorptive removal of uranium and thorium from rare earths, cesium from other alkaline metals such as sodium, hexa-valent chromium from zinc as well as adsorptive recovery of gold from chloride media. Furthermore, reductive coagulation of gold from chloride media for the direct recovery of metallic gold and adsorptive recovery of palladium and platinum using chemically modified persimmon tannin extract were studied. © 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.