Synthesis and efficiency of poly(acrylamidrazonehydrazide) chelating fiber for preconcentrating and separating trace gold and palladium from solution

A new poly(acrylamidrazone-hydrazide) chelating fiber has been synthesized using polyacrylonitrile fiber as a starting material. An ICP-OES method for applying the fiber to preconcentrate and separate trace Au(III) and Pd(IV) ions in solution has been established. The experiments show that 8 ng/ml Au(III) and 6 ng/ml Pd(IV) in 1000 ml of solution can be enriched quantitatively by the fiber column at a flow rate of 12 ml/min at pH 2. These ions can be desorbed quantitatively with 10 ml of 2.5% CS(NH₂)₂ + 6% H₂SO₄ containing 0.2% Fe(II) from the column at an elution rate of 6 ml/min. A fiber treated with 12M HCl or 15M HNO₃ can be re-used 10 times with above 95% recoveries of Au(III) and Pd(IV), and 120–800-fold excesses of Cu(II), Mn(II), Fe(III), Al(III), Ni(II), Mg(II) and Ca(II) ions cause little interference. The RSDs are 2.0% for 8 ng/ml Au and 3.5% for 6 ng/ml Pd. The recovery of added standard in a solution sample from a metal smelter is 96.2% for Au and 100% for Pd, and the content of each ion in the sample determined by the method is in agreement with the analysed value from the smelter laboratory.