Mussel inspired synthesis of polydopamine/polyethyleneimine-grafted fly ash composite adsorbent for the effective separation of U(VI)

Yong Zhang; Siqi Huang; Bingyu Mei; Xiaoyu Tian; Lingyi Jia; Wenkun Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162841

Mussel inspired synthesis of polydopamine/polyethyleneimine-grafted fly ash composite adsorbent for the effective separation of U(VI)

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Jun 10:876:162841. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162841. Epub 2023 Mar 15.

Authors

Yong Zhang¹, Siqi Huang², Bingyu Mei², Xiaoyu Tian², Lingyi Jia², Wenkun Zhu³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, Sichuan Co-Innovation Center for New Energetic Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Nuclear Waste and Environmental Safety Key Laboratory of Defense, School of National Defence Science & Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. Electronic address: yongpandm@swust.edu.cn.
² State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, Sichuan Co-Innovation Center for New Energetic Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Nuclear Waste and Environmental Safety Key Laboratory of Defense, School of National Defence Science & Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, Sichuan Co-Innovation Center for New Energetic Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Nuclear Waste and Environmental Safety Key Laboratory of Defense, School of National Defence Science & Technology, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China. Electronic address: zhuwenkun@swust.edu.cn.

PMID: 36924963
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162841

Abstract

Polydopamine/polyethyleneimine-grafted fly ash composite (PDA/PEI/FA), an efficient multifunctional adsorbent for U(VI) with excellent separation efficiency (94.5 %) and capacity (422.5 mg/g), was synthesized by grafting PDA and PEI on FA via Mussel inspiration and Michael addition reaction. The introduction of PDA and PEI had brought numerous functional groups with fine affinities to uranium, like catechol, amino and imino, causing good U(VI) separation performances. Langmuir and Pseudo-second-order models were well matched with experimental data, illustrating the U(VI) separation on PDA/PEI/FA was a homogeneous chemical adsorption process. After five cycles, the U(VI) adsorption efficiency for PDA/PEI/FA was still up to 90.2 %, implying that PDA/PEI/FA possessed good stability and reusability. Besides, the good dynamic adsorption performances of PDA/PEI/FA further demonstrated that PDA/PEI/FA was an ideal adsorbent for the practical wastewater treatment. According to the characterization results, U(VI) was absorbed by PAD/PEI/FA through complexation, redox reaction, electrostatic attraction and hydrogen bonding. Given the above, PDA/PEI/FA showed good practical application prospect in U(VI) separation.

Keywords: Fly ash; Polydopamine; Polyethyleneimine; Separation; U(VI).