Precious metal recovery from electronic waste by a porous porphyrin polymer

Yeongran Hong, Damien Thirion, Saravanan Subramanian, Mi Yoo, Hyuk Choi, Hyun You Kim, J. Fraser Stoddart, Cafer T. Yavuz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

174 Scopus citations

Abstract

Urban mining of precious metals from electronic waste, such as printed circuit boards (PCB), is not yet feasible because of the lengthy isolation process, health risks, and environmental impact. Although porous polymers are particularly effective toward the capture of metal contaminants, those with porphyrin linkers have not yet been considered for precious metal recovery, despite their potential. Here, we report a porous porphyrin polymer that captures precious metals quantitatively from PCB leachate even in the presence of 63 elements from the Periodic Table. The nanoporous polymer is synthesized in two steps from widely available monomers without the need for costly catalysts and can be scaled up without loss of activity. Through a reductive capture mechanism, gold is recovered with 10 times the theoretical limit, reaching a record 1.62 g/g. With 99% uptake taking place in the first 30 min, the metal adsorbed to the porous polymer can be desorbed rapidly and reused for repetitive batches. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that energetically favorable multinuclear-Au binding enhances adsorption as clusters, leading to rapid capture, while Pt capture remains predominantly at single porphyrin sites.
Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)16174-16180
Number of pages7
JournalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Volume117
Issue number28
DOIs
StatePublished - Jul 14 2020
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Generated from Scopus record by KAUST IRTS on 2021-03-16

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General

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