Extracting Uranium from Seawater: Promising AF Series Adsorbents

• DOI: 10.1021/acs.iecr.5b03136
• Publication Date: 2015-11-02T16:21:47Z
• Authors: S. Das; Y. Oyola; Richard T. Mayes; Chris J. Janke; L.-J. Kuo; G. Gill; J. R. Wood; S. Dai
• Keywords: Comonomer

A new family of high-surface-area polyethylene fiber adsorbents named the AF series was recently developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The were synthesized by radiation-induced graft polymerization acrylonitrile and itaconic acid (at different monomer/comonomer mol ratios) onto high surface area fibers. degree grafting (%DOG) found to be 154–354%. grafted nitrile groups converted amidoxime treating with hydroxylamine. amidoximated then conditioned 0.44 M KOH 80 °C followed screening ORNL sodium-based synthetic aqueous solution, spiked 8 ppm uranium. uranium adsorption capacity in simulated seawater ranged from 170 200 g-U/kg-ads irrespective %DOG. molar ratio range 7.57–10.14 seemed optimum for highest loading capacity. Subsequently, also tested natural Pacific Northwest (PNNL) using flow-through column experiments determine varying conditioning times °C. AF1 measured after 56 days marine testing demonstrated as 3.9 g-U/kg-adsorbent 3.2 1 3 h °C, respectively. Based on values several samples, it observed that changing resulted a 22–27% decrease seawater.