Abstract
The need to secure future supplies of energy attracts researchers in several countries to a vast resource of nuclear energy fuel: uranium in seawater (estimated at 4.5 billion tons in seawater). In this study, we developed effective adsorbent fibers for the recovery of uranium from seawater via atom-transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) from a poly(vinyl chloride)-co-chlorinated poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC-co-CPVC) fiber. ATRP was employed in the surface graft polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) and tert-butyl acrylate (tBA), precursors for uranium-interacting functional groups, from PVC-co-CPVC fiber. The [tBA]/[AN] was systematically varied to identify the optimal ratio between hydrophilic groups (from tBA) and uranyl-binding ligands (from AN). The best performing adsorbent fiber, the one with the optimal [tBA]/[AN] ratio and a high degree of grafting (1390%), demonstrated uranium adsorption capacities that are significantly greater than those of the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) reference fiber in ...
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