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Sunlight Polymerization of Poly(amidoxime) Hydrogel Membrane for Enhanced Uranium Extraction from Seawater
Chunxin Ma1, Jinxiang Gao1, Dong Wang1
1State Key Laboratory of Marine Resources Utilization in South China Sea Hainan University Haikou 570228 P. R. China.
Abstract:
The uranium level in seawater is ≈1000 times as high as terrestrial ores and can provide potential near-infinite fuel for the nuclear energy industry. However, it is still a significant challenge to develop high-efficiency and low-cost adsorbents for massively extracting uranium from seawater. Herein, a simple and fast method through low-energy consumption sunlight polymerization to direct fabrication of a poly(amidoxime) (PAO) hydrogel membrane, which exhibits high uranium adsorption capacity, is reported. This PAO hydrogel owns semi-interpenetrating structure and a hydrophilic poly(acrylamide) 3D network of hydrogel which can disperse and fix PAOs well. As a result, the amidoxime groups of PAOs exhibit an outstanding uranium adsorption efficiency (718 ± 16.6 and 1279 ± 14.5 mg g-1 of m uranium/m PAO in 8 and 32 ppm uranium-spiked seawater, respectively) among reported hydrogel-based adsorbents. Most importantly, U-uptake capacity of this hydrogel can achieve 4.87 ± 0.38 mg g-1 of m uranium/m dry gel just after four weeks within natural seawater. Furthermore, this hydrogel can be massively produced through low-energy consumption and environmentally-friendly sunlight polymerization. This work will provide a high-efficiency and low-cost adsorbent for massive uranium extraction from seawater.
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