Selective Adsorption and Recovery of Gallium from Aqueous Solutions
Summary
Gallium has become a strategically critical element owing to its central role in semiconductors, optoelectronic devices and emerging energy technologies. Natural reserves are limited and primary mining generates environmental burdens, prompting a shift towards secondary sources such as industrial effluents, electronic waste leachates and metallurgical by-products. Selective adsorption offers a versatile route to concentrate Ga³⁺ from complex aqueous matrices, exploiting tailored sorbents with specific binding sites that discriminate gallium from co-occurring metal ions. Typical approaches employ functionalised polymeric resins, nanostructured carbons and graphene derivatives bearing chelating ligands or phosphoryl, amino and thiol moieties. Adsorption is governed by surface chemistry, solution pH, ion speciation and thermodynamics, often modelled by Langmuir or Freundlich isotherms and kinetic frameworks. Subsequent desorption under mild conditions allows recovery of gallium in high purity and sorbent regeneration. Recent advances focus on enhancing selectivity against competing ions (for example indium and scandium), increasing capacity through nanostructured supports, and integrating adsorption units into continuous processes. These developments promise sustainable gallium supply chains, reduced waste and lower ecological impact.
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Selective Adsorption and Recovery of Gallium from Aqueous Solutions publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in selective adsorption and recovery of gallium from aqueous solutions across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Adsorption capacity: The maximum amount of gallium ions that a unit mass of sorbent can bind under equilibrium conditions.
Selectivity: The preference of a sorbent to bind gallium ions in the presence of competing metal species.
Chelating resin: A polymer matrix bearing multidentate ligand groups that form stable complexes with metal ions.
Pseudo-second-order kinetic model: A kinetic description where the rate of adsorption is proportional to the square of the number of unoccupied adsorption sites.
Isotherm: A mathematical relationship describing how the amount of gallium adsorbed varies with its equilibrium concentration in solution.
References
- Preparation of 4-Amino-3-hydrazino-1,2,4-triazol-5-thiol-Modified Graphene Oxide and Its Greatly Enhanced Selective Adsorption of Gallium in Aqueous Solution. Molecules (2024).
- Graphene Oxide Covalently Functionalized with 5-Methyl-1,3,4-thiadiazol-2-amine for pH-Sensitive Ga3+ Recovery in Aqueous Solutions. Molecules (2024).
- Efficient Gallium Recovery from Aqueous Solutions Using Polyacrylonitrile Nanofibers Loaded with D2EHPA. Metals (2023).
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