Study on adsorption of scandium by iminodiacetic acid resin TP207

Abstract

Abstract Scandium (Sc) is a rare transition metal applied in unique electronic/alloy materials such as magnesium scandium alloy, aluminum scandium alloy, laser glass, superconductors, and electronic components. However, scandium is extremely hard to obtain. In this paper, the iminodiacetic acid resin TP207 was first applied for the recovery of scandium from a hydrochloric acid solution. The adsorption of Sc3+ by TP207 resin was analyzed by SEM-EDS, FT-IR, and XPS. It was found that the best adsorption time was 2 hours with the equilibrium adsorption rate reaching 99%. The saturated adsorption amount of resin was 0.05g/ml. This process involves the ion exchange of scandium ions with sodium ions on the resin and the chemisorption of scandium with the -COO- group. Furthermore, the TP207 resin exhibited a quasi-second-order kinetic mechanism towards Sc3+, which was the rate of adsorption is proportional to the concentration of the reactants. In addition, the adsorption of resin for Sc3+ is an endothermic reaction by calculating the thermodynamic parameters, and there is a 3.6% difference in adsorption efficiency between the two cycle experiments. In a word, the TP207 resin is a very promising adsorbent for Sc beneficiation from the HCl system.