Cadmium and iron removal from phosphoric acid using commercial resins for purification purpose

Three commercial resins bearing sulfonic, amino phosphonic, or phosphonic/sulfonic reactive groups have been tested for the removal of iron and cadmium from phosphoric acid solutions. The sorption properties are compared for different experimental conditions such as sorbent dosage (0.5-2.5 g L-1), phosphoric acid concentration (from bi-component solutions, 0.25-2 M), and metal concentrations (i.e., in the range 0.27-2.7 mmol Cd L-1 and 0.54 mmol Fe L-1) with a special attention paid to the impact of the type of reactive groups held on the resins. The sulfonic-based resin (MTC1600H) is more selective for Cd (against Fe), especially at high phosphoric acid concentration and low sorbent dosage, while MTS9500 (aminophosphonic resin) is more selective for Fe removal (regardless of acid concentration and sorbent dosage). Equilibrium is reached within 2-4 h. The resins can be ranked in terms of cumulative sorption capacities according the series: MTC1600H > MTS9570 > MTS 9500. Sulfuric acid (0.5-1 M) can be efficiently used for the desorption of both iron and cadmium for MTC1600H, while for MTS9570 (phosphonic/sulfonic resin) sulfuric acid correctly desorbs Cd (above 96% at 1 M concentration), contrary to Fe (less than 30%). The aminophosphonic resin shows much poorer efficiency in terms of desorption. The sulfonic resin (i.e., MTC1600H) shows much higher sorption capacity, better selectivity, comparable uptake kinetics (about 2 h equilibrium time), and better metal desorption ability (higher than 98% with 1 M acid concentration, regardless of the type of acid). This conclusion is confirmed by the comparison of removal properties in the treatment of different types of industrial phosphoric acid solutions (crude, and pre-treated H3PO4 solutions). The three resins are inefficient for the treatment of crude phosphoric acid, and activated charcoal pre-treatment (MTC1600H reduced cadmium content by 77%). However, MTC1600H allows removing over 93% of Fe and Cd for H3PO4 pre-treated by TBP solvent extraction, while the others show much lower efficiencies (< 53%).