Prussian blue nanocubes decorated on nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon network for efficient sorption of radioactive cesium

Eliminating the radioactive 137Cs from nuclear waste is critical to the human health and environment. Prussian blue (PB)-based materials are considered as promising adsorbents for the removal of cesium. Herein, we demonstrate a facile strategy to achieve controllable synthesis of PB nanocrystals decorated on nitrogen-doped hierarchically porous carbon (NHPC) derived from cattle bone as adsorbent to remove cesium. The PB nanocrystals with a nanocube morphology are well distributed on NHPC, which is beneficial to increase the reachable surface area during adsorption. The resulting adsorbent exhibits a remarkable adsorption performance with a capacity of 125.31 mg g-1, a superior recyclability with 87 % of initial capacity retained after 5 cycles, and an outstanding adsorption selectivity for cesium. X-ray diffraction, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy combined with 57Fe Mössbauer spectroscopy results reveal that cesium ions are inserted into the crystal channels of PB to generate a new phase (CsFe2(CN)6·3H2O) after adsorption. Moreover, the adsorption process is spontaneous and endothermic which can be described by the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetic models. This strategy for synthesis of PB/carbon adsorbents offers efficient candidate for removal of 137Cs from wastewater.