CO2-in-Water Pickering Emulsion-Assisted Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly of Raspberry-like sorbent microbeads for uranium adsorption

Abstract

• An amino oxime functionalized raspberry-like sorbent microbeads is firstly prepared for uranium extraction. • A new idea for the controllable interface assembly of nano-sized particles was provided. • RL-SMs exhibited a remarkable uranium removal efficiency when multiple metal ions coexist. • RL-SMs shows a fast adsorption equilibrium, which only need 30 min. Highly efficient adsorption of radioactive uranium from seawater is a grand challenge of mounting severity as the energy demand increases. To address this, a salicylaldoxime functionalized raspberry-like microbeads sorbent is created to achieve highly efficient uranium adsorption via the CO 2 -in-Water Pickering emulsion-assisted polymerization-induced self-assembly method. The prepared raspberry-like microbeads sorbent with a high density of accessible functional groups exhibits the maximum uranium adsorption capacity of 41.02 mg g −1 within 30 min, the time required to reach adsorption equilibrium is shorter than most of the reported amine-oxime functionalized microsphere adsorbents. In addition, under the coexistence of high-concentration metals such as Na + , Mg 2+ , K + , Ca 2+ , etc., the raspberry-like microbeads sorbent still showed the best affinity for uranium, which is mainly benefit from the specific binding between amine oxime group and uranium. Our work not only provides a general strategy for the rapid and selective adsorption of uranium from seawater, but also provides a new perspective for the controlled assembly of NSs and the preparation of nano-hybrid materials combining the advantages of micro/nano structures.