Reduction of precious metal ions in aqueous solutions by contact-electro-catalysis

Yusen Su; Andy Berbille; Xiao-Fen Li; Jinyang Zhang; MohammadJavad PourhosseiniAsl; Huifan Li; Zhanqi Liu; Shunning Li; Jianbo Liu; Laipan Zhu; Zhong Lin Wang

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-48407-w

Reduction of precious metal ions in aqueous solutions by contact-electro-catalysis

Nat Commun. 2024 May 17;15(1):4196. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48407-w.

Authors

Yusen Su^#^{1

2}, Andy Berbille^#^{1

2}, Xiao-Fen Li^#^{1

3}, Jinyang Zhang^#^{1

2}, MohammadJavad PourhosseiniAsl^{1

4}, Huifan Li^{1

5}, Zhanqi Liu^{1

6}, Shunning Li⁷, Jianbo Liu³, Laipan Zhu^{8

9}, Zhong Lin Wang^{10

11

12

13}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101400, China.
² School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Advanced Materials (MOE), School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Engineering, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
⁵ Center on Nanoenergy Research, School of Physical Science and Technology, Guangxi University, Nanning, 530004, China.
⁶ School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
⁷ School of Advanced Materials, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen, 518055, China.
⁸ CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101400, China. zhulaipan@binn.cas.cn.
⁹ School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China. zhulaipan@binn.cas.cn.
¹⁰ CAS Center for Excellence in Nanoscience, Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 101400, China. zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu.
¹¹ School of Nanoscience and Technology, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China. zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu.
¹² Yonsei Frontier Lab, Yonsei University, Seoul, 03722, Republic of Korea. zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu.
¹³ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0245, USA. zhong.wang@mse.gatech.edu.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Precious metals are core assets for the development of modern technologies in various fields. Their scarcity poses the question of their cost, life cycle and reuse. Recently, an emerging catalysis employing contact-electrification (CE) at water-solid interfaces to drive redox reaction, called contact-electro-catalysis (CEC), has been used to develop metal free mechano-catalytic methods to efficiently degrade refractory organic compounds, produce hydrogen peroxide, or leach metals from spent Li-Ion batteries. Here, we show ultrasonic CEC can successfully drive the reduction of Ag(ac), Rh³⁺, [PtCl₄]^2-, Ag⁺, Hg²⁺, Pd²⁺, [AuCl₄]^-, and Ir³⁺, in both anaerobic and aerobic conditions. The effect of oxygen on the reaction is studied by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy and ab-initio simulation. Combining measurements of charge transfers during water-solid CE, EPR spectroscopy and gold extraction experiments help show the link between CE and CEC. What's more, this method based on water-solid CE is capable of extracting gold from synthetic solutions with concentrations ranging from as low as 0.196 ppm up to 196 ppm, reaching in 3 h extraction capacities ranging from 0.756 to 722.5 mg g^-1 in 3 h. Finally, we showed CEC is employed to design a metal-free, selective, and recyclable catalytic gold extraction methods from e-waste aqueous leachates.