Enhanced uranium photoreduction on Ti3C2Tx MXene by modulation of surface functional groups and deposition of plasmonic metal nanoparticles

Kaifu Yu; Pengyan Jiang; Jiacheng Wei; Haibo Yuan; Yue Xin; Rong He; Liangbing Wang; Wenkun Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127823

Enhanced uranium photoreduction on Ti₃C₂T_x MXene by modulation of surface functional groups and deposition of plasmonic metal nanoparticles

J Hazard Mater. 2022 Mar 15:426:127823. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127823. Epub 2021 Nov 17.

Authors

Kaifu Yu¹, Pengyan Jiang², Jiacheng Wei³, Haibo Yuan², Yue Xin², Rong He⁴, Liangbing Wang⁵, Wenkun Zhu⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Sichuan Civil-military Integration Institute, School of National Defence Science & Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, Sichuan 621010, PR China; State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Key Laboratory of Electronic Packing and Advanced Functional Materials of Hunan Province, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410083, PR China.
² State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Key Laboratory of Electronic Packing and Advanced Functional Materials of Hunan Province, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410083, PR China.
³ Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Polymer Science and Technology, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518060, PR China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Sichuan Civil-military Integration Institute, School of National Defence Science & Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, Sichuan 621010, PR China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory for Powder Metallurgy, Key Laboratory of Electronic Packing and Advanced Functional Materials of Hunan Province, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, Hunan 410083, PR China. Electronic address: wanglb@csu.edu.cn.
⁶ State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Sichuan Civil-military Integration Institute, School of National Defence Science & Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang, Sichuan 621010, PR China. Electronic address: zhuwenkun@swust.edu.cn.

PMID: 34823956
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2021.127823

Abstract

Photocatalytic reduction of soluble hexavalent uranium (U(VI)) is a novel and efficient avenue to enriching U(VI), where the free U(VI) is firstly bound on the surface of photocatalysts and then reduced to insoluble tetravalent uranium (U(IV)) by photoelectrons. Therefore, constructing the efficient U(VI) binding sites on photocatalysts is an efficient strategy to boost catalytic activity toward U(VI) photoreduction. Herein, we successfully constructed an efficient catalyst for U(VI) photoreduction by depositing Ag nanoparticles on Ti₃C₂T_x MXene with abundant U(VI) binding sites (Ag/Ti₃C₂T_x-O). Impressively, the U(VI) extracting mass over Ag/Ti₃C₂T_x-O under light reached up to 1257.6 mg/g in 120 min, which was almost 11 times as high as that without light. Further mechanistic studies indicated that the U(VI) binding sites on Ti₃C₂T_x MXene in Ag/Ti₃C₂T_x-O were beneficial to the reduction of U(VI) by significantly decreasing its reduction potential. More importantly, hot electrons generated by Ag nanoparticles were transferred into the binding sites to easily reduce the bound U(VI), resulting in the remarkable performance of Ag/Ti₃C₂T_x-O during U(VI) enrichment.

Keywords: Ag nanoparticles; Plasmonic photocatalysis; Ti(3)C(2)T(x) MXene; U(VI) photoreduction.