Aluminum vanadate microspheres is a simple but effective material for uranium extraction: Performance and mechanism

Abstract

Uranium (UVI) extraction from aqueous solutions is crucial to both nuclear energy development and ecological safety. While it is remains a great challenge for designing and synthesizing effective and low-cost materials with high sorption capacity, selectivity and excellent stability. Herein, sea urchin-like H11Al2V6O23.2 (HAVO) microspheres were design and synthesized through a simple hydrothermal method at different pH states, batch experiments indicate the maximum uranium adsorption capacity reaches 917 ​mg ​g−1 at pH ​= ​5 in 50 ​ppm uranium-spiked aqueous solution. Regression analyses shows that the adsorption follows more fitted to the pseudo second order kinetics and Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. This HAVO possesses high selectivity towards uranium under coexisting of the majority interfering ions, which provides an effective, easy and applicable diagram for radioactive element elimination and enrichment.