Abstract
Increasing concerns regarding the adverse effects of radioactive iodine waste have inspired the development of a highly efficient and sustainable desalination process for the treatment of radioactive iodine-contaminated water. Because of the high affinity of silver towards iodine species, silver nanoparticles immobilized on a cellulose acetate membrane (Ag-CAM) and biogenic silver nanoparticles containing the radiation-resistant bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans (Ag-DR) were developed and investigated for desalination performance in removing radioactive iodines from water. A simple filtration of radioactive iodine using Ag-CAM under continuous in-flow conditions (approximately 1.5 mL/s) provided an excellent removal efficiency (>99%) as well as iodide anion-selectivity. In the bioremediation study, the radioactive iodine was rapidly captured by Ag-DR in the presence of high concentration of competing anions in a short time. The results from both procedures can be visualized by using single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) scanning. This work presents a promising desalination method for the removal of radioactive iodine and a practical application model for remediating radioelement-contaminated waters.
Highlights
In recent decades, radioactive isotopes have widely been used for industrial and medical applications that have introduced drastic quantities of radioactive toxic pollutants to the environment [1,2]
Silver metal-based materials have widely been used in the desalination of radioactive iodine wastes because of the high affinity of silver towards iodine species [16–30]
In a typical desalination procedure, these adsorbents should immerse in contaminated water for the removal of radioactive iodine, and radioactive elements-containing solid wastes generated by this process need to be separated from water [31]
Summary
Radioactive isotopes have widely been used for industrial and medical applications that have introduced drastic quantities of radioactive toxic pollutants to the environment [1,2]. In a typical desalination procedure, these adsorbents should immerse in contaminated water for the removal of radioactive iodine, and radioactive elements-containing solid wastes generated by this process need to be separated from water [31]. Nano- or microscale silver materials are aggregated under high salt concentrations, causing physicochemical property losses [32,33] Together, these observations inspired the design of a more efficient and stable silver particle-based desalination method for the removal of radioactive iodine waste in two ways by the incarceration of silver-based adsorbents. When significant slurry or insoluble materials are contained in liquid contaminants, membrane-based equipment is unsuitable for purification procedures In such cases, the bioremediation could be considered for an alternative process, as this method has some advantages over the membrane-based method, including: (1) possibility for on-site remediation; (2) removal of complexed radioelement contaminants by simple genetic engineering; and (3) scaled remediation processing. As a second method, we report biogenic AgNP-containing radiation-resistant bacterial cells as efficient adsorbent carriers for use in a novel bioremediation platform
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