“…Bratskaya et al, 2012).The second trend shows that increased number of Lewis base sites due to introduction of electron donor N-atoms of functional fragments does not necessarily leads to higher sorption capacity toward Au(III) ions. Thus other mechanisms different from ion-exchange can contribute to Au(III) sorptionon chitosan and its N-derivatives..Taking into account literature data on Au(III) reduction to Au(0) in the process of sorption on polystyrene-supported glucosamine resin(Sun et al, 2006), chitosan(Alexander Pestov, Nazirov, Modin, Mironenko, & Bratskaya, 2015b) and other Ncontaining derivatives of biopolymers(Gurung, Adhikari, Gao, Alam, & Inoue, 2014)(Parajuli, Kawakita, Inoue, & Funaoka, 2006), one can suggest that formation of elemental gold was the most probable reason for high sorption capacity of unmodified chitosan for Au(III) ions. To elucidate whether the noble metals change oxidation state upon sorption on chitosan, 2-PEC, 4-PEC, and IMC sorbents were analyzed by XPS.…”