Rapid removal of radioactive cesium by polyacrylonitrile nanofibers containing Prussian blue

Hyuncheol Kim; Minsun Kim; Wanno Lee; Soonhyun Kim

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.12.050

Rapid removal of radioactive cesium by polyacrylonitrile nanofibers containing Prussian blue

J Hazard Mater. 2018 Apr 5:347:106-113. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.12.050. Epub 2017 Dec 27.

Authors

Hyuncheol Kim¹, Minsun Kim², Wanno Lee¹, Soonhyun Kim³

Affiliations

¹ Nuclear Emergency and Environmental Protection Division, Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), Daejeon, 34057, Republic of Korea.
² Smart Textile Convergence Research Group, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu, 42988, Republic of Korea.
³ Smart Textile Convergence Research Group, Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Daegu, 42988, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: sh2358@dgist.ac.kr.

PMID: 29304449
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2017.12.050

Abstract

After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster in Japan in 2011, the demand drastically increased for efficient technology for the removal of radioactive cesium. Prussian blue (PB) nanoparticles have shown excellent adsorption ability toward Cs. In this study, we synthesized PB nanoparticles incorporated polyacrylonitrile nanofiber (PB/PAN). PB/PAN has the porous structure of nanofibers, with diameters of several hundred nanometers. PB nanoparticles can be incorporated successfully into the PAN matrix without any change to their intrinsic crystallinity and structure. The mesoporous structure of PB/PAN and the incorporation of PB nanoparticles led to an increase in the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller surface area and pore volume. In addition, PB/PAN exhibited excellent wettability with water. With simple filtering for the removal of radioactive cesium, PB/PAN showed high removal efficiency (87 ± 3%) within 10 s for 10 mL of ¹³⁷Cs solution (1000 Bq L^-1). In addition, the ¹³⁷Cs removal by PB/PAN showed high removal efficiency (70 ± 2%, after 1 h), even in the actual seawater medium (1000 Bq L^-1 of ¹³⁷Cs). Therefore, PB-incorporated PAN nanofibers can be considered useful in the practical application of Cs removal from radioactive wastewater.

Keywords: Cesium 137; Electrospinning; Polyacrylonitrile nanofibers; Prussian blue; Radioactivity.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't