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In situ photo-regenerative phenolic interface for continuous precious metal recovery

Nature Water volume 4, pages 360–368 (2026)Cite this article

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Abstract

Water contamination and the resource scarcity of precious metals pose pressing environmental challenges, making sustainable recovery from secondary sources an attractive alternative to conventional mining. Yet, progress has been hindered by low adsorption capacities and the irreversible loss of active binding sites. Here we introduce a photochemical regeneration strategy that embeds a phenol–quinone redox cycle into a photoactive nanocarbon aerogel, enabling continuous recovery through light-driven electron transfer and proton-coupled redox cycling. This design repeatedly captures and releases precious metals, achieving ultrahigh adsorption (~15,925.5 mg g−1 for Au), greatly extended lifespan (>250 h) and broad applicability across diverse metals (Au, Ag, Pt and Pd) and concentrations (0.6 ppb to 1,000 ppm). Compared with state-of-the-art materials, it achieves over threefold higher capacity and a tenfold longer operational lifetime, while simultaneously reducing electricity and reagent consumption by 88.4% and 97.7%, respectively. Demonstrations in industrial waste (for example, central processing unit leachates) and natural seawater validate this approach as a practical, scalable and sustainable solution for precious metal recovery in real-world circular economy applications.

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Fig. 1: Designing a phenol–quinone redox cycle in nanocarbon aerogels for continuous precious metal recovery.
Fig. 2: Light-driven Au recovery.
Fig. 3: Light-driven Ag, Pd and Pt recovery.
Fig. 4: Photoelectrical properties and photochemical regeneration in polyHQ-coated nanocarbon aerogels.
Fig. 5: Real-world use, environmental impact and economic benefit.

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The data that support the findings of this study are included in the article and its Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant nos. 42421005, 52233006 and W2431015) and the Basic Research Program of Jiangsu Province (grant no. BK20242081). This research is also supported by the Singapore National Research Foundation under its Investigatorship program (NRF-NRFI08-2022-0011) and Competitive Research Program (NRF-CRP26-2021-0002), and by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, through its Research Centre of Excellence award to the Institute for Digital Molecular Analytics (IDMxS, grant no. EDUNC-33-18-279-V12) and Tier 1 Grant RG93/24. J.J.R. is the recipient of an ARC Future Fellowship (Project FT210100669).

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Xuemin Chen, Qi-Zhi Zhong.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Synthetic and Biological Colloids, Ministry of Education, School of Chemical and Material Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi, China

    Xuemin Chen, Zeyu Qian, Keteng Wang, Fan Song, Yan Lv, Xing Yi Ling & Tianxi Liu

  2. School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Qi-Zhi Zhong, Lam Bang Thanh Nguyen, Jaslyn Ru Ting Chen, Emily Xi Tan & Xing Yi Ling

  3. Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering, School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Joseph J. Richardson

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Contributions

X.C., Q.-Z.Z. and Y.L. conceived of the idea for the paper. X.C. and Z.Q. designed and conducted the experiments. L.B.T.N. performed DFT simulation. J.R.T.C., E.X.T. and J.J.R. conducted the validation and data curation. Q.-Z.Z., Y.L., X.Y.L. and T.L. reviewed and interpreted the results. All authors reviewed and commented on the paper.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qi-Zhi Zhong, Yan Lv, Xing Yi Ling or Tianxi Liu.

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Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Methods, Figs. 1–57, Notes 1–10 and Tables 1–14.

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Source data

Source Data Fig. 2 (download XLSX )

Data for XPS and adsorption capacity of polyHQ-coated nanocarbon aerogels for Au.

Source Data Fig. 3 (download XLSX )

Data for XPS of polyHQ-coated nanocarbon aerogels for Ag, Pt and Pd.

Source Data Fig. 4 (download XLSX )

Data for EIS, photocurrent, photoluminescence spectra, UPS spectra, FTIR spectra, ratios of C–O to C=O, and difference in adsorption capacities of pathway I and pathway I + II.

Source Data Fig. 5 (download XLSX )

Data for the adsorption efficiency for CPU leachates, natural seawater, mining wastewater and recovery performance for Ag, Pt and Pd waste sources.

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Chen, X., Zhong, QZ., Qian, Z. et al. In situ photo-regenerative phenolic interface for continuous precious metal recovery. Nat Water 4, 360–368 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-026-00591-3

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