New insight into the mechanism of biofouling-resistant thiazole-linked covalent organic frameworks for selective uranium capture from seawater

The extraction of uranium from seawater is crucial for the sustainable production of nuclear fuel. Traditional amidoxime-functionalized adsorbents suffer from competitive adsorption of vanadium ion and biofouling. These challenges motivate the development of novel adsorbents for selective uranium extraction from seawater. Herein, four kinds of thiazole-linked covalent organic frameworks (COFs) were investigated to harvest uranium from seawater. The selectivity and anti-biofouling performance were systematically investigated through the molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. Driven by the pore size sieving effect and electrostatic interaction, the Ca2UO2(CO3)3 complex and vanadate anions were selectively separated by different COFs in special areas. On one hand, benefits from the small steric partition factor, the Ca2UO2(CO3)3 complex can stick on the surface of COFs. On the other hand, the dispersive negatively and positively charged areas of studied COFs work as potential binding sites for the Ca2UO2(CO3)3 complex and vanadate anions, respectively. Moreover, an analysis of pulling force and desorption time between uranium and vanadium ions further confirmed the selectivity of various thiazole-linked COFs. The anti-biofouling property was comparatively investigated by dynamic trajectory and solvent accessible surface area. Our outcomes illustrate that the hydroxyl and zwitterionic groups in the thiazole-linked COFs endow their strong surface hydrations to resist marine biofouling. In particular, the TpBdsaPa is identified as a promising candidate due to charge dispersed zwitterionic group as well as remarkable anti-biofouling ability. The present study sheds an atomic-level understanding of the thiazole-linked COFs for selective uranium uptaking from seawater, which will provide aid to design novel adsorbent with highly selective uranium extraction capacity and strong anti-biofouling property.