A novel sponge-like composite biosorbent fabricated by sodium alginate and polyethyleneimine for uranium(VI) extraction from seawater

Uranium extraction from seawater (UES) has important strategic significance for maintaining the sustainable development of nuclear energy. This article presents the preparation of a low-cost, efficient, and highly reusable biosorbent sodium alginate/polyethyleneimine (SA/PEI) through a simple one-step crosslinking process. The chemical crosslinking between PEI and SA provides biosorbent excellent mechanical strength and thermal stability. SA/PEI was characterized by using FTIR, XRD, TGA, EDS, XPS, SEM before and after adsorption of uranium. Thermodynamic research results show that the uranium adsorption of SA/PEI is a spontaneous, entropy increasing endothermic process. The adsorption fitted the pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir model with maximum adsorption capacity reach 353.09 mg g