Abstract: Germanium was widely used in the semiconductor materials, metal materials, infrared optics, optical communications,biomedicals, etc. In this study chestnut shell tannin extract that was prepared from usually abandoned chestnut shell as raw material, was used as a complexing precipitant of geranium ion. The effects of reaction time, reaction temperature, the amount of chestnut shell tannin extract, pH value,ZnSO4 concentration during complexing precipitation were tested respectively. According to single factor and orthogonal experiment results,the optium experimental conditions were as follows:pH value 2.5, the amount of tannin extract to ( 36 times of germanium), ZnSO4 content of 110 g/L. Under these conditions,the recovery of germanium was up to 99.0%.