Ion-exchange resins for metals recovery (Cu and Zn) from acidic mine waters

Environmental and economic concerns over the last decades have introduced new research opportunities for the application of several techniques in order to improve the removal of contaminants, as well as to explore methods to recover added-value elements. One example could be the recovery of metals ions from mining activity wastewaters in an approach to circular economy scheme. Therefore, in this work the separation and recovery of Zn and Cu, from acidic mine waters, as valuable metals is proposed. For that, an ion-exchange process with resins using a fixed bed configuration is used at labscale. A solvent impregnated (e.g. Lewatit VP OC 1026) and a chelating (e.g. Lewatit TP 207) resins were used for the recovery of Zn and Cu, respectively. Results showed that it was possible to separate and concentrate both metals (Zn around 10 times and Cu about 40 times). For that, ion-exchange resins provide a circular economy approach for metallurgical processing plants