Wax‐Casted Macroporous Polyamidoxime Hydrogel Particles Encapsulated in Alginate‐Polyacrylic Acid Beads for Highly Efficient Uranium Capture from Seawater
Jiajia Yang, Ningbo Geng, Yun Li, Lidong Wu, Tao Chang, Haitao Shi, Zia Ahmad, Maojun Jiang, Jian Qu, Haijun Zhang, Jiping Chen, Yanqiang Huang
Abstract
Abstract Extracting uranium from the ocean is considered a promising solution for meeting nuclear fuel consumption. To date, porous adsorbents fabricated with polyamidoxime (PAO), particularly macroporous PAO hydrogels, have demonstrated exceptional potential for uranium capture from natural seawater. Herein, a novel macroporous PAO hydrogel is developed via a well‐designed wax‐casting method. The developed wax‐casted macroporous PAO (WMPAO) hydrogel particles are subsequently encapsulated in alginate‐polyacrylic acid (A‐PAA) beads. The obtained A‐PAA@WMPAO beads exhibit a high q max of 687.4 mg‐U/g‐Ads. and show a good adsorption capacity of 8.23 mg g −1 toward uranium in simulated seawater. Additionally, A‐PAA@WMPAO shows good reusability with a 31.2% reduction in uranium adsorption capacity after five consecutive adsorption‐desorption cycles. Furthermore, A‐PAA@WMPAO displays satisfactory extraction efficiencies of 95.9–99.5% for U‐spiked coastal seawater after 10 days of adsorption, achieving adsorption capacities ranging from 207.5 to 3963.2 µg g −1 . Particularly, with the utilization of 4 mg of A‐PAA@WMPAO beads, a high adsorption capacity of 4.79 mg g −1 for uranium from 10 L of coastal seawater within 15 days is achieved. These obtained results comprehensively demonstrate the significant potential of the fabricated A‐PAA@WMPAO beads for uranium capture from natural seawater.