The use of an electrogenerative process as a greener method for recovery of gold(III) from the E-waste

In this present work, an electrogenerative flow-through reactor with an activated reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) cathode was developed and used in recovering gold from an E-waste. The system resulted in more than 99% gold being recovered within 2 h of operation for 100 mg L-1 of initial gold(III) chloride concentration. Besides, the flow cell system in series shows around 98% gold being recovered within 4 h. From three different cathodes studied, activated RVC serves as the best cathode material having the highest recovery rate with more than 99% of gold from E-waste being recovered in 2 h of operation. It has an exceptional high void volume, highly porous surface structure, rigid structure and low resistance to fluid flow. It can be seen that the developed electrogenerative method is environmentally friendly and could recover the gold fully (>99%), even at a low concentration of gold. Finally, the morphology of gold deposits on an activated RVC cathode was also investigated. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.