Treating waste with waste: Facile preparation of uranyl based photocatalyst for efficient degradation of organic dyes

Uranyl ion is a powerful oxidant after photoexcited, making it a good catalyst for organic matters. In this work, we have demonstrated that uranyl ion itself could photodegrade various organic dyes and different influence factors were also investigated. Besides, we synthesized silica with high adsorption capacity for uranyl ions and found that the adsorbed uranyl ions were still capable to degrade organic dyes, thus to synthesize a uranium-based solid photocatalyst (U/SiO2) with a simple way. A variety of experiments under different conditions were taken out to verify the degradation property of U/SiO2. The results revealed that uranyl ions adsorbed on silica transformed into solid product (metastudtite) after photo-reacted with dyes, realizing the solidification of uranium and the degradation of dyes simultaneously. It also demonstrated that metastudtite are unable to degrade dyes, which also provided reference for other related works. This work broadened the application field of depleted uranium, provided a simple method for synthesizing uranium-based solid catalysts, which was also suitable for other adsorbents and we can adsorb uranium from wastewater and then applied them for dye degradation to realize the purpose of treating waste with waste.