Aminomethanesulfonic Acid Grafted Polyamidoxime Fibers with Hydrophilicity, Salt-Tolerance and Antimicrobial Properties for Highly Efficient Uranium Extraction from Seawater

Uranium extraction from seawater plays a key role in redefining the declining uranium reserves to afford sustainable nuclear power. However, it is an urgent need to develop adsorbents simultaneously possessing enhanced efficiency, collect ability, salt resistance, antibacterial properties and economy to massively extract uranium from seawater. Herein, aminomethanesulfonic acid grafted polyamidoxime fibers (PAO-AMS-A) with hydrophilicity, salt resistance and antibacterial properties were prepared. The resulting fibers display high salt resistance and high uranium uptake capacity, providing the fibers a very high adsorption efficiency of 554.09 mg g(-1) in pure uranium solution, 205.43 mg g(-1) and 473.44 mg g(-1) in 8 ppm and 20 ppm uranium spiked seawater and 10.04 mg g(-1) in real seawater, respectively. Furthermore, the material exhibited good salt tolerance, and the uranium adsorption capacity was still as high as 597.97 mg g(-1) in high concentrations of NaCl solution. Note that PAO-AMS-A has also good antibacterial activity, the antibacterial rate against bacteriais cultured in seawater is up to 93.49 %. Overall, PAO-AMS-A fibers are promising in industrial uranium extraction from seawater due to their high adsorption efficiency, salt resistance and antimicrobial properties.