Dibutylamide hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent used for selective extraction of Au(III) from hydrochloric acid medium

The effective and environmentally friendly recovery of gold from secondary resources has recently received increased attention. Hydrophobic deep eutectic solvent (HDES) composed of N,N-di-butylacetamide and 1-decanoic acid was used to construct the liquid-liquid extraction system to extract Au(III) from HCl medium. At first, DSC, TGA, FT-IR, and 1H NMR were used to describe the evidence of internal hydrogen bond interaction. The above evidence was verified in the molecular dynamics study of HDES. Then, a series of optimization experiments were carried out to investigate the extraction behaviors of HDES. Based on the results of optimization experiments, response surface method was used to explore the best experimental conditions and the results showed that HDES extracted 99% Au(III) under 0.56 mol/L HCl, 2.19 mol/L NaCl, and 5.83 mmol/L Au(III), and the maximum loading reached 77.0 mg/g. Further studies on the kinetics and thermodynamics of the extraction were used to propose an ion association mechanism. In addition, using 0.1 mol/L thiourea as the stripping agent, HDES displayed outstanding Au(III) selectivity and maintained the extraction efficiency in tests which involved 5-cycles. Overall, this study provides a green and efficient Au(III) recovery strategy for secondary resources.