One-pot synthesis of novel polyvinylphosphonic acid hydrogels for efficient separation of low-enriched uranium in water

Uranium extraction from seawater and the treatment of radioactive wastewater has traditionally been a hot topic. Herein, p(VPA-AM)n solid hydrogels with high uranium extraction properties based on vinylphosphonic acid (VPA) were successfully prepared by one-step copolymerization for the first time. The batch adsorption experiments demonstrated that p(VPA-AM)n has strong uranium chelating ability, fast uranium adsorption kinetics (within 200 min) and high uranium adsorption capacity (644.67 mg/g), and its adsorption behavior conforms to the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and the Langmuir adsorption isotherm model, which is a spontaneous heat-absorbing chemical monolayer adsorption process. After 15 adsorption–desorption tests, the adsorption capacity was kept above 96 % of the original capacity, and the uranium extracted from the salt lake water achieved at 3.56 mg/g, which showed superb behavior in treating complex uranium systems. Mechanism studies revealed that the strong interaction between UO22 + and −PO43- dominated the adsorption and the robust complexation might have led to the electron transfer in the structure. The maximum uranium removal rate of p(VPA-AM)n in simulated seawater reached 90 %, and the simple in situ zinc oxide-modified p(VPA-AM)n hydrogel showed good anti-biosludge properties against three common bacteria (E. coli, B. subtilis and S. aureus), which has a great potential for application in seawater uranium extraction and uranium wastewater treatment.