Work

Uranium extraction from wastewater by heteroatom-doped carbon microspheres derived from polyphosphazene loading with zinc oxide

Year: 2024

Type: article

Abstract: The effective management of uranium-contaminated wastewater is crucial for environmental protection and public health safety. In this context, a novel composite was synthesized involving the intergration of zinc oxide into heteroatom-doped polyphosphazene carbon microspheres (TAC/ZnO) by hydrothermal method. The integration of ZnO into the TAC significantly enhanced the porosity, thereby offering more adsorption sites and improving the uranium adsorption performance. The optimal adsorption experiment was conducted at a pH of 5.5 and obtained a remarkable adsorption capacity of 513.9 mg/g for U (VI) within just 80 min. Additionally, the adsorption process was endothermic and spontaneous reaction, adhering to the nonlinear Langmuir isothermal adsorption model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model. Moreover, the TAC/ZnO presented higher selectivity for U (VI) in the presence of other cations. After 8 cycles, TAC/ZnO still have a good removal rate for U (VI), decreasing from 97.54% to 71.78%. Furthermore, according to X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and the density functional theory (DFT) calculation results, it was found that the excellent adsorption performance was primarily assigned to the oxygen atoms of Zn-O and nitrogen atoms of pyridinie-N-oxide in the TAC/ZnO. Subsequently, this study offers a promising approach for sustainable environmental remediation by using TAC/ZnO as an efficient and reliable adsorbent for uranium-contaminated water.

Source: Journal of environmental chemical engineering

DOI: 10.1016/j.jece.2024.113806