Treatment of gold ore cyanidation wastewater by adsorption onto a Hydrotalcite-type anionic clay as a novel adsorbent

The treatment of cyanide contaminated wastewater from a gold processing plant was performed by the synthesized nanostructured Layered Double Hydroxide (LDH) which has known as a Hydrotalcite-type anionic clay. LDH was synthesized by the co-precipitation process, characterized by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM) Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and Wavelength Dispersive X-ray analysis (WDX) and applied for removal of free cyanide from both synthetic solution and mining effluent. The maximum particle size of synthesized LDH was determined to be 4 nm based on the Scherrer’s equation. The maximum loading capacity of LDH, 60 mg/g, indicates that LDH is an interesting adsorbent for cyanide removal. The data modeling showed that the kinetic and equilibrium data best fitted by FPKM and RPIM, respectively, also, rate-controlling step in the adsorption process is intra-particle diffusion based on Weber–Morris plot, and the adsorption of CN− onto LDH is a two-step process. The thermodynamic studies confirm that the adsorption of free cyanide on Mg/Al LDH is a spontaneous and endothermic process. The energy of activation for adsorption of free cyanide on Mg/Al LDH was determined to be 6.14 kJ/mol, which is in the range physicochemical sorption. The mining wastewater treatment was performed by the synthesized LDH. The adsorption experiments showed that more than 90% of free cyanide was removed from the real solution during a short period of contact time, which confirms the ability of LDH for the treatment of industrial cyanide contaminated wastewater.