Adsorption capacity of kelp-like electrospun nanofibers immobilized with bayberry tannin for uranium(vi) extraction from seawater

Abstract

The extraction of uranium(vi) from seawater is of paramount interest to meet the rapid expansion of global energy needs. A novel gelatin/PVA composite nanofiber band loaded with bayberry tannin (GPNB-BT) was used to extract uranium(vi) from simulated seawater in this study. It was fabricated by electrostatic spinning and crosslinking, and characterized by SEM, EDX, FTIR, and XPS. Batch experiments were carried out to investigate the adsorption of uranium(vi) onto GPNB-BT. Simultaneously, the regeneration-reuse process of the GPNB-BT was determined and illustrated here. The GPNB-BT exhibited excellent adsorption and regeneration performance, and a maximum adsorption capacity of 254.8 mg g−1 toward uranium(vi) was obtained at 298.15 K, pH = 5.5. Further, the regeneration rate for uranium did not decrease significantly after five cycles. Moreover, even at an extremely low initial concentration of 3 μg L−1 in the simulated seawater for 24 h, GPNB-BT showed an ultrahigh adsorption rate of more than 90% and adsorption capacity of 7.2 μg g−1 for uranium. The high density of adjacent phenolic hydroxyl groups and the specific surface area of GPNB-BT improved the adsorption ability of GPNB-BT for uranium. Therefore, the GPNB-BT was shown to have an application prospect for the effective extraction of uranium(vi) from seawater.