Abstract

Adsorption is a powerful tool to remove contaminants ions from water. In here, two major limitations of adsorption technique (the accumulation of exhausted wasteadsorbent and poor selectivity) are overcome by time-dependent selectivity and cycling of adsorbent by selective desorption. Real mine effluent containing 917 ± 92 mg Cu/L and 36,9 ± 3,7 mg Co/L was used as a real-life sample to demonstrate the ability to separate Cu and Co by means of adsorption on MgO with subsequent recovery copper by leaching and cobalt as sulfide. A brief economic evaluation supports the suitability of the approach.