In the process of cyanide gold extraction, a large number of wastewater containing metal cyanide complex, such as zinc cyanide complex. The direct reuse of wastewater containing metal cyanide complex will significantly reduce the flotation recovery of gold. To avoid its accumulation in water, we need to reduce or remove metal cyanide complex in wastewater. Metal cyanide complex is negatively charged in water,
hyamine is a typical cationic surfactant, they can appear electrostatic adsorption in water, and the hydrophobicity of surfactant is conducive to separation from water. This study attempts to use
hyamine to treat wastewater containing zinc cyanide complex, explore the best reaction conditions, and reveal the removal mechanism of zinc cyanide complex. The results showed that the longer the chain length of
hyamine, the smaller the molar ratio of Zn and CN, the higher the removal rate of zinc and cyanide. We chose octadecyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (OTAB) to carry on our research. The addition amount was 1mM/L, pH was 10, zinc content was 50mg/L, Zn:CN was 1:3. Under room temperature, the removal rates of zinc and cyanide could reach 88.86% and 92.17%, respectively. Zeta potential and FTIR analysis showed that the main binding force between OTAB and zinc cyanide complex ion was electrostatic adsorption.The morphology distribution of zinc cyanide showed that with the decrease of zinc cyanide ratio, zinc cyanide complexes transferred to higher coordination complexes (Zn(CN)3-, Zn(CN)42-). Under the above experimental conditions, the OTAB residual rate is 67%, and the introduction of sodium polyacrylate (PAA) can reduce the amount of OTAB. When the amount of PAA is 150ppm and the amount of OTAB is 0.5mm /L, the removal rates of zinc and cyanide can reach 93.56% and 98.33%, respectively, and the OTAB residual rate can be reduced to 5.5%.