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ABSTRACT
Ion exchange resins (IER) have been widely used for water purification for many years. They later on gained popularity in food processing and finally they established themselves as a powerful purification and extraction technology for the mining and plating industries. They are now commercially available in large quantities. Numerous different functionalities have been attached to the polymeric matrix resulting in a larger scope of selectivity for charged metal ions. Cationic ion exchange groups such as sulphonic and carboxylic acids are able to fix metal ion in their cationic form (Mn+), whereas different ammonium groups fixed on the anionic resins would fixed the metals in their anionic complex form such as cyanides, sulphate complexes. Moreover, the industry also proposes a large scope of chelating resins specific to some metals in a given pH range. These groups exhibit a high affinity for some metals resulting in very high adsorption capacity and low leakages. While varying the operating conditions some metals can be selectively removed from tailings even when present at low concentration. Nowadays metal such as nickel and cobalt are processed on such chelating resins possessing iminodiacetic (IDA) groups. Numerous metals extraction technologies are in use generating solutions with varying compositions; simultaneous solid polymeric matrix ion exchange resins are also offering a broad range of functionalities, porosity and stripping kinetics. Many ion exchange resins are now also produced with a uniform particle size distribution; this translates in better mechanical and osmotic stabilities as well as into considerably improved hydraulic performances. The modern ion exchange resins uniform particle size distribution improves considerably the operating conditions in terms of pressure drop, elution and backwashing. Due to the complex composition of the feed streams, pilot studies are often carried on for determining the optimum process parameters. The economic factors must be also considered since cationic or anionic resins are somehow cost competitive but chelating resins tend to be more expensive but exhibits a high selectivity thereby they are very appropriate for treating dilute streams. The metals concentrated on ion exchange resins can be then further processed. Simultaneously, the engineering of ion exchange resin process equipment has tremendously evolved to more efficient designs especially multi column, counter current elution, continuous processes. Today, not only uranium, gold and PGM are processed on ion exchange resins but also base metals such as nickel, copper can be extracted and further purified. As a matter of fact, more and more metals are recovered on IER, either they represent a significant value or their disposal is more and more regulated. Ion Exchange (IX) technology nicely complements other technology (SX, CIP) for the recovery, purification of many metals from various streams. Of course adsorption by ion exchange resins is not always the unique answer for metals recovery nevertheless it is a powerful tool to treat side streams or high value metals solutions improving the overall operation yield. The IX technology is also widely used in the plating industry for the recovery of metals from concentrated or rinsing baths. This presentation reviews many of the presently available IER and their main application for metal recovery.