Process for recovering precious metals from molecular sieve bodies

A process for recovering both precious metal loaded in a crystalline aluminosilicate-based molecular sieve and the molecular sieve itself, the process comprising:

• providing a crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve composite containing a crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve loaded with precious metals;
• contacting the crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve composite with an aqueous ion-exchange solution to produce the crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve and an aqueous new solution containing base metal cations and precious metal cations, the base metal cations selected from the group consisting of Na+, Li+, K+, Mg+2, Ca+2, Cr+3, Cr+6, UO2+, Mn+2, Fe+3, Co+2, Ni+2, Cu+2, Zn+2, Cd+2, Sp+2, Pb+2, Tl+, and Pb+4;
• reducing the precious metal cations within a nonionic borane reducing resin by contacting the aqueous new solution with the resin at a temperature of from 20° C. to 35° C. and at a pH of greater than 1 but less than 8, the resin comprising a solid cross-linked copolymer containing a plurality of amine-borane adducts or phosphine-borane adducts, thereby producing a mixture of the crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve and resin containing precious metals, and a remaining solution containing the base metal cations;
• separating the resin from the mixture;
• recovering the precious metals from the resin;
• recovering the crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve by passing the remaining solution through a filter that separates the crystalline aluminosilicate molecular sieve therefrom.