Self-Standing Porous Aromatic Framework Electrodes for Efficient Electrochemical Uranium Extraction

Dingyang Chen; Yue Li; Xinyue Zhao; Minsi Shi; Xiaoyuan Shi; Rui Zhao; Guangshan Zhu

doi:10.1021/acscentsci.3c01291

Self-Standing Porous Aromatic Framework Electrodes for Efficient Electrochemical Uranium Extraction

ACS Cent Sci. 2023 Dec 13;9(12):2326-2332. doi: 10.1021/acscentsci.3c01291. eCollection 2023 Dec 27.

Authors

Dingyang Chen¹, Yue Li¹, Xinyue Zhao¹, Minsi Shi¹, Xiaoyuan Shi¹, Rui Zhao¹, Guangshan Zhu¹

Affiliation

¹ Key Laboratory of Polyoxometalate and Reticular Material Chemistry of Ministry of Education, Faculty of Chemistry, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China.

Abstract

Electrochemical uranium extraction from seawater provides a new opportunity for a sustainable supply of nuclear fuel. However, there is still room for studying flexible electrode materials in this field. Herein, we construct amidoxime group modified porous aromatic frameworks (PAF-144-AO) on flexible carbon cloths in situ using an easy to scale-up electropolymerization method followed by postdecoration to fabricate the self-standing, binder-free, metal-free electrodes (PAF-E). Based on the architectural design, adsorption sites (amidoxime groups) and catalytic sites (carbazole groups) are integrated into PAF-144-AO. Under the action of an alternating electric field, uranyl ions are selectively captured by PAN-E and subsequently transformed into Na₂O(UO₃·H₂O)_x precipitates in the presence of Na⁺ via reversible electron transfer, with an extraction capacity of 12.6 mg g^-1 over 24 days from natural seawater. This adsorption-electrocatalysis mechanism is also demonstrated at the molecular level by ex situ spectroscopy. Our work offers an effective approach to designing flexible porous organic polymer electrodes, which hold great potential in the field of electrochemical uranium extraction from seawater.