Sustainable gold extraction from ore and electronic waste

Date

2025

Authors

Mann, M.
Nicholls, T.P.
Patel, H.D.
Lisboa, L.S.
Pople, J.M.M.
Pham, L.N.
Worthington, M.J.H.
Smith, M.R.
Yin, Y.
Andersson, G.G.

Editors

Advisors

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Type:

Journal article

Citation

Nature Sustainability, 2025; 8(8):947-956

Statement of Responsibility

Maximilian Mann, Thomas P. Nicholls, Harshal D. Patel, Lynn S. Lisboa, Jasmine M. M. Pople, Le Nhan Pham, Max J. H. Worthington, Matthew R. Smith, Yanting Yin, Gunther G. Andersson, Christopher T. Gibson, Louisa J. Esdaile, Claire E. Lenehan, Michelle L. Coote, Zhongfan Jia, Justin M. Chalker

Conference Name

DOI

10.1038/s41893-025-01586-w

Abstract

Gold plays an essential role in the global economy and has wide applications in various industrial technologies. Currently, the gold supply relies heavily on mining processes that employ toxic substances such as cyanide salts and mercury metal, leading to substantial environmental pollution. Gold extraction approaches that do not rely on cyanide and mercury are needed to improve the overall sustainability of gold production. Here we develop an approach for gold leaching and recovery from ore and electronic waste. This approach first uses trichloroisocyanuric acid, activated by a halide catalyst, to oxidatively dissolve gold metal from ore and electronic waste, and then applies a polysulfide polymer sorbent to selectively bind gold from the leachate. The gold can be recovered in high purity by pyrolysing or depolymerizing the sorbent. The efficacy of this approach in gold extraction was validated using ore, electronic waste and other gold-containing waste. Overall, this work provides a viable approach to achieve greener gold production from both primary and secondary resources, improving the sustainability of the gold supply.

School/Discipline

Dissertation Note

Provenance

Description

Access Status

Rights

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2025

License

Grant ID

http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE150101863
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP200100090
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP210100025
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DP230100587
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP200301660
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/LP200301661
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/FT220100054
 http://purl.org/au-research/grants/arc/DE250100525

Published Version

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-025-01586-w

Call number

Persistent link to this record

https://hdl.handle.net/2440/147058