Abstract
As the demand for uranium production-based energy worldwide has been increasing in the last decades to maintain nuclear growth for electricity production, there are great efforts towards developing an easy and inexpensive method for uranium extraction and separation from its ores. For this purpose, mesoporous inorganic cation exchangers provide an efficient separation technology that can help streamline production and lower overall cost. This study describes the development of nano-structured mesoporous sodium zirconium phosphate (NaZrP-CEX) for separation and extraction of uranyl ions from real samples. The fabricated NaZrP-CEX was well characterized by various techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), N2 adsorption/desorption, Dynamic light scattering (DLS) and zeta potential). The kinetics/thermodynamic behaviors of uranyl ion adsorption into NaZrP-CEX from an aqueous solution were minutely studied. The kinetic studies showed that the pseudo-second order model gave a better description for the uptake process. The negative value of ΔG indicate high feasibility and spontaneity of adsorption. Finally, mesoporous NaZrP-CEX can be regenerated using both of HNO3 (0.05 M) or HCl (1 M) up to seven cycles of operation.
Highlights
Extraction of uranium has been quite important in the recent years for production of electricity, as well as producing industrial and medical isotopes [1]
We report the fabrication and characterization of mesoporous NaZrP from Egyptian Rosetta zircon mineral, keeping in mind that: (i) the phosphate group in zirconium phosphate mesostructured is considered as a promising unit for a high-sensitivity cation exchanger for uranyl ions, (ii) the adsorption mechanism of uranyl ions on NaZrP pore surfaces, based on active sites containing hydrogen and sodium ions can be replaced by uranyl ions [29], (iii) the surface area morphology and pore cavities are the key factors to controlling the diffusion and adsorption of large quantities of uranyl ions onto exterior and interior surface of the mesopores
The solution pH exhibited an important functionality of uranyl ions adsorption on self-functionalized NaZrP-CEX with an optimum pH at 4.5
Summary
Extraction of uranium has been quite important in the recent years for production of electricity, as well as producing industrial and medical isotopes [1]. Huge quantities of uranium exist in seawaters (3 μg/L) [4,5,6]. The necessity to produce large quantities of uranium from real mines has resulted in the headway of the extraction techniques [7,8,9,10,11]. The various techniques used for extraction and separation of uranium include precipitation, solvent extraction and adsorption attracted much attention in the last decades [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14]. Adsorption was found to be a potential method for removal and extraction of metal ion from effluents because of its low operational and maintenance costs [15,16,17]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
