Sustainable recovery of copper from wastewater via zinc cementation enhanced by natural chalcone-based accelerators

This study presents an eco-friendly strategy to enhance copper ion recovery from industrial wastewater through zinc cementation, utilizing natural chalcone-derived pyrazolo-quinoxaline compounds as organic accelerators. These bio-based additives notably improve recovery efficiency by promoting dendritic copper deposition, which enhances surface reactivity and mass transfer rates. For the first time, this research combines quantum chemical analysis with a dimensionless model (Sh = 0.81Sc^0.33Re^0.47) to explain the mechanism of chalcone-assisted cementation, proposing a sustainable and mechanistically grounded approach for metal recovery.