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Relevance on the Recovery of High Economic Value Elements and Potential of Ionic Liquids

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Handbook of Solid Waste Management

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Abstract

The increasing demand for critical raw materials, along with the increasing need of making the related industrial processes sustainable, highlights the importance of obtaining them from secondary or alternative sources. Lithium, cobalt, and nickel, as well as other critical elements (platinum, palladium, gallium, germanium, indium, and niobium), are present in wastewaters of industries using emerging technologies, which should be recovered due to their high economic value while fulfilling the circular economy concept. In this field, ionic liquids (ILs) have gained increased interest as extraction solvents and materials due to their unique properties, namely, the possibility of different cation-anion combinations that allow to improve selectivity and extraction/sorption efficiency for critical elements. Moreover, ionic liquids regeneration may be possible, representing an additional economic advantage. In this book chapter, it is provided the state of the art on the application of ILs in the recovery of high economic value elements from aqueous matrices. It should be remarked that despite its relevance, to date the ionic liquids feasibility has not been evaluated under realistic industrial wastewater conditions (element concentrations, sorption time, composition of multi-element systems).

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Funding for Science and Technology (FCT) through the doctoral grant of Joana C. Almeida [SFRH/BD/139471/2018]. The authors acknowledge the financial support to LAQV-REQUIMTE and CICECO [UIDB/50006/2020; UIDB/50011/2020 & UIDP/50011/2020], financed by national funds through the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology/MCTES.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and CICECO-Aveiro Institute of Materials, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Joana C. Almeida, Celso E. D. Cardoso, Tito Trindade & Mara G. Freire

  2. Department of Chemistry and LAQV-REQUIMTE, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal

    Joana C. Almeida, Celso E. D. Cardoso & Eduarda Pereira

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  1. Joana C. Almeida
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  2. Celso E. D. Cardoso
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  4. Mara G. Freire
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Correspondence to Joana C. Almeida .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Research and Development Center, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Chinnappan Baskar

  2. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Center for Nanofibers and Nanotechnology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Seeram Ramakrishna

  3. Chemistry and Bioprospecting Division, Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India

    Shikha Baskar

  4. Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, Delhi, India

    Rashmi Sharma

  5. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Center for Nanofibers and Nanotechnology, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    Amutha Chinnappan

  6. Department of Basic Science, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel University of Agriculture and Technology, Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Rashmi Sehrawat

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  1. Research and Development Center, Teerthanker Mahaveer University, Moradabad, India

    Chinnappan Baskar

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Almeida, J.C., Cardoso, C.E.D., Trindade, T., Freire, M.G., Pereira, E. (2022). Relevance on the Recovery of High Economic Value Elements and Potential of Ionic Liquids. In: Baskar, C., Ramakrishna, S., Baskar, S., Sharma, R., Chinnappan, A., Sehrawat, R. (eds) Handbook of Solid Waste Management. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-4230-2_98

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