Emerging natural and tailored materials for uranium-contaminated water treatment and environmental remediation

Publication date: Available online 29 January 2019Source: Progress in Materials ScienceAuthor(s): Yi Xie, Changlun Chen, Xuemei Ren, Xiangxue Wang, Haiyan Wang, Xiangke WangAbstractThe rapid growth in nuclear industries such as uranium ores mining, nuclear energy generation, spent-fuel treatment and nuclear weapon manufacture has caused a legacy of uranium contamination in the aquatic environment, which poses a potential threat to the ecological environment and human health. The safe and effective disposal of uranium-contaminated water has thus been an urgent requirement. For decades, various materials have been shown to be capable for removing uranium from aqueous solution by adsorption technique, namely inorganic materials (e.g., clay minerals, metal oxides, mesoporous silica), organic polymers (e.g., resins, cellulose, chitosan), carbon family materials (e.g., mesoporous carbon, carbon nanotubes, graphene oxides), and porous framework materials (e.g., covalent organic frameworks, metal-organic frameworks). In this review, we provide a systematic and comprehensive overview of the researches conducted from 2005-2018 for uranium removal from aqueous solution by these emerging materials. The different approaches in the determination of the adsorption mechanisms between uranium and adsorbents are also briefly summarized, involving macroscopic experimental approaches, microscopic spectroscopic and computational approaches. Finally, we discuss the current limitations and propose ...

Source: Progress in Materials Science - January 30, 2019 Category: Materials Science Source Type: research