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Enhancing U(VI) adsorptive removal via amidoximed polyacrylonitrile nanofibers with hierarchical porous structure

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Abstract

In this study, hierarchical porous polyacrylonitrile nanofibers were fabricated via electrospinning zeolitic imidazolate framework-8 (ZIF-8) and polyacrylonitrile (PAN), followed by tannic acid (TA) etching and amidoximation (denoted as p-PAN-AO). The as-prepared p-PAN-AO was utilized to remove radioactive U(VI) from sewage water and simulated seawater. The influence of uranium adsorption on p-PAN-AO was investigated as a function of uranium concentration, pH, and time. Adsorption kinetic experiments indicated that the pseudo-second-order kinetic model was fitted better than the pseudo-first-order model. Benefiting from amidoximation and hierarchical porous structure, the nanoadsorbent exhibited a high U(VI) adsorption capacity of 412.28 mg/g at 298 K. The thermodynamic analysis manifested a spontaneous and endothermic nature of U(VI) adsorption. The results demonstrated a potential application of the reported materials in nuclear wastewater and environmental cleanup.

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Funding

This study was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (21774095, 21976075), Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (22120200051, 0400219376), Shanghai Municipal Natural Science Foundation (17ZR1432200), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation funded project (0500229046).

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  1. Zhijie Zhang and Nini Chu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Advanced Civil Engineering Materials of Ministry of Education, Department of Polymeric Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 201804, China

    Zhijie Zhang, Congling Li & Rui Liu

  2. Radiochemistry Laboratory, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Nini Chu & Yinglin Shen

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  1. Zhijie Zhang
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  2. Nini Chu
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  4. Congling Li
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  5. Rui Liu
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Correspondence to Rui Liu.

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Zhang, Z., Chu, N., Shen, Y. et al. Enhancing U(VI) adsorptive removal via amidoximed polyacrylonitrile nanofibers with hierarchical porous structure. Colloid Polym Sci 299, 25–35 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-020-04764-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-020-04764-8

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