Studies on the ferric iron sorption from acid mine drainage on lewatit resin as a step for metal conversion to a value-added product

The study aimed to determine the optimal conditions for adsorption and elution of iron from acid mine drainage by ion-exchange resin LEWATIT MonoPlus TP 207 under a batch regime of operation. Langmuir's sorption equation was employed to analyse the equilibrium data from the experiments. The data fitting demonstrated that the process obeyed pseudo-second-order kinetics with a linear regression coefficient (R2) of 0.9999. Because of the higher demand for hydrochloric solution (100 g/ L) for the ferric iron elution, we studied the effect of the preliminary stage of galvanic elution of Fe(III) to Fe(II) in the presence of H2. In that way, a slightly acidic solution (30 g/ L) was sufficient to desorb more than 95 % of iron from ion exchange resin LEWATIT MonoPlus TP 207 at a temperature of 70 °C.