Synthesis of microporous aromatic framework with scholl-coupling reaction for efficient uranium (VI) capture

Abstract

With the depletion of uranium on land, how to effectively collect extremely low concentration uranium in complex seawater has been concerned by people. With the further development of global nuclear energy, environmental threats need to be eliminated. Therefore, it is necessary to develop more green, efficient and excellent adsorbents. Herein, a series of amidoxime-functionalized Scholl-coupling microporous polymers with the different molar ratio of 1,3,5-triphenylbenzene and phenylacetonitrile were prepared via a simple and green Scholl reaction strategy for the effectively extraction uranium from aqueous solution. The density of phenylacetonitrile has effects on adsorption properties of microporous polymers according to the sorption kinetics and isotherms. The optimized sorbent SMP3-AO exhibits a good adsorption capacity due to the balance between sufficiently loading contents of chelating groups and the structural porosities of material. The calculated maximum adsorption capacity on the adsorbent reaches at 793.6 mg/g. Moreover, the adsorption properties are conducted in the simulated seawater with low concentration (μg/L level) of uranium ions and the material shows excellent adsorption capacity of uranium ions. According to XPS analysis, uranium is chelated by amidoxime functional groups. These results prove that the microporous polymer provide a new design guide for U(VI) extraction from aqueous solution.