Extracting Uranium from Seawater: Promising AI Series Adsorbents

A new series of adsorbents (AI10 through AI17) were successfully developed at ORNL by radiation induced graft polymerization (RIGP) of acrylonitrile (AN) and vinylphosphonic acid (VPA) (at different mole to mole ratios) onto high surface area polyethylene fiber, with high degrees of grafting (DOG) varying from 110 to 300%. The grafted nitrile groups were converted to amidoxime groups by reaction with 5 wt % hydroxylamine at 80 °C for 72 h. The amidoximated adsorbents were then conditioned with 0.44 M KOH at 80 °C followed by screening at ORNL with prescreening brine spiked with 8 ppm uranium. Uranium adsorption capacities in prescreening ranged from 171 to 187 g-U/kg-ads irrespective of percent DOG. The performance of the adsorbents with respect to uranium adsorption in natural seawater was also investigated using flow-through-column testing at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Three hours of KOH conditioning led to higher uranium uptake than 1 h of conditioning. The adsorbent AI11, containing AN and VPA at the mole ratio of 3.52, emerged as the potential candidate for the highest uranium adsorption (3.35 g-U/kg-ads.) after 56 days of exposure in seawater flow-through-columns. The rate of vanadium adsorption over uranium linearly increased throughout the 56 days of exposure. The total mass of vanadium uptake was ∼5 times greater than uranium after 56 days.