Investigation of potential conjugate adsorbent for efficient ultra-trace gold(III) detection and recovery

A novel conjugate adsorbent was developed for simultaneous Au(III) detection and recovery from urban mining waste. This adsorbent has the large surface area-to-volume ratios and uniformly shaped pores in the nanostructures in its cage cavities. Therefore, the conjugate adsorbent permitted to fast and specific Au(III) ions capturing via a colorimetric naked-eye visualization based on stable complexation [Au(III)–DHDM]n+ mechanism. The detection limit and sorption capacity of the novel adsorbent at optimum conditions was 0.22 μg/L and 183.42 mg/g, respectively. The design in such novel adsorbent offered a simple procedure for ultra-trace Au(III) detection and recover without using highly sophisticated instruments.