Polypyrrole modified Fe0-loaded graphene oxide for the enrichment of uranium(vi) from simulated seawaterElectronic supplementary information (ESI) available. See DOI: 10.1039/c8dt02819b

• Main Authors: Zhang, Yiming, Zhang, Hongsen, Liu, Qi, Chen, Rongrong, Liu, Jingyuan, Yu, Jing, Jing, Xiaoyan, Zhang, Milin, Wang, Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: 25.09.2018
• ISSN: 1477-9226; 1477-9234
• DOI: 10.1039/c8dt02819b

Extraction of uranium( vi ) from seawater has attracted much attention for its potential use in the nuclear energy field. In this work, we synthesized graphene oxide-polypyrrole (GO-PPy) through pyrrole monomer polymerization on graphene oxide (GO) with an aqueous solution at low temperature and prepared reduced graphene oxide-polypyrrole-zero-valent iron (rGO-PPy-Fe 0 ) composites by chemical deposition. We characterized rGO-PPy-Fe 0 using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The rGO-PPy-Fe 0 composites were investigated for the removal of uranium from aqueous solution and simulated seawater. The experimental results demonstrated that the rGO-PPy-Fe 0 adsorbent possessed a superior capacity for the adsorption of uranium at mg g −1 and μg g −1 at the pH value of seawater. The adsorption process conformed to the pseudo-second-order rate equation and the Langmuir isotherm model. Based on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), we revealed the possible adsorption mechanism of uranium onto rGO-PPy-Fe 0 , which simulated a prospective potential of the adsorbent in seawater. A high selectivity uranium ( vi ) adsorbent was synthesized and used for removal of uranium ( vi ). The idiographic adsorption capacity is attributed to coordination and chemical reduction of uranium ( vi ) ions with rGO-PPy-Fe 0 .