Akita Univ. Develops Extractant to Recover Effluent’s Rare Metals

A research team of Akita University’s Faculty of Engineering and Resource Science, in which Fumio Hamada professor, Atsushi Shibayama assistant professor and Yoshihiko Kondo associate professor join, developed new extractant to collect rare metals from industrial effluent generated in factories such for automotive catalysts and solar cells. The research team aims practical application of the extractant in 3 years.The research team succeeded in test collection of 90% of zirconium and 75% of palladium from industrial effluent. The team will try to improve metal collection volume and to collect other metals such as platinum and rare earths. The extractant may reduce many processes and costs in rare metal recycling from industrial effluent.Many kinds of rare metals are contained in industrial effluent generated in productive processes of catalysts for automotive exhaust purification and solar cells. Rare metal collection from the effluent requires plural types of separating mediums and several times of extracting processes with large costs by the present technology.Akita University’s team has used thiacalixarene in their researches, a sulfur containing macrocyclic compound which is easily complexed with metal ions. The team especially adopted thiacalix [6] arene which is formed by 6 benzene rings and adheres to particular metals in liquor containing several metal ions.The research team will try to develop extractant which can collect wanted metals by mixture of thiacalixarene and molecules such as nitrogen and phosphorus which are easily complexed with metal ions.