Request specs
Insight · 03

Choosing ion-exchange resin for mixed precious-metal streams

PolyGOResin ion-exchange resin beads for selective metal capture

Last reviewed: 15 June 2026

Ion-exchange resin is the quiet workhorse of precious-metal recovery, and the wrong choice is expensive in two directions: a resin that under-loads wastes column volume, and one that will not elute cleanly traps your metal.

Three properties decide the economics

  • Selectivity — how strongly the resin grabs your target metal over the background ions.
  • Loading capacity — how much metal a given volume holds before breakthrough.
  • Elution behaviour — how cleanly and cheaply you can strip the metal back off.

Matching resin to feed

For mixed streams, selectivity usually wins — a slightly lower-capacity resin that ignores the background ions beats a high-capacity resin that loads up on the wrong metal. The PolyGOResin Select Series is engineered around that trade-off, with grades tuned for gold, PGMs and base-metal capture.

Send us a feed analysis and we will recommend a grade and a column configuration.

PolyGO Technical Team

The PolyGO Technical Team combines process chemists and recovery-line engineers who specialise in precious- and base-metal recovery from electronic, battery and catalyst feedstocks. Collectively the team has commissioned recovery lines across South-East Asia and advises operators on chemistry selection, effluent compliance and yield optimisation.