Radiation synthesis of a new amidoximated UHMWPE fibrous adsorbent with high adsorption selectivity for uranium over vanadium in simulated seawater

• GMA and MA were grafted on UHMWPE fiber by radiation graft copolymerization.
• The nitrile groups were immobilized onto grafted UHMWPE fiber via chemical method.
• This new AO-based fibrous adsorbent has good adsorption selectivity of uranyl ion.

A new kind of highly efficient adsorbent material has been fabricated in this study for the purpose of extracting uranium from seawater. Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) fiber was used as a trunk material for the adsorbent, which was prepared by a series of modification reactions, as follows: (1) grafting of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and methyl acrylate (MA) onto UHMWPE fibers via 60Co γ-ray pre-irradiation; (2) aminolyzation of UHMWPE fiber by the ring-opening reaction between of epoxy groups PGMA and ethylene diamine (EDA); (3) Michael addition of amino groups with acrylonitrile (AN) to yield nitrile groups; (4) amidoximation of the attached nitrile moieties by hydroxylamine in dimethyl sulfoxide–water mixture. Modified UHMWPE fibers were characterized by means of attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to confirm the attachment of amidoxime (AO) groups onto the UHMWPE fibers. The results of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and single fiber tensile strength verified that the modified UHMWPE fiber retained excellent mechanical properties at a low absorbed radiation dose. The adsorption performance of the UHMWPE fibrous adsorbent was evaluated by subjecting it to an adsorption test in simulated seawater using a continuous-flow mode. The amount of uranium adsorbed by this AO-based UHMWPE fibrous adsorbent was 1.97 mg-U/g after 42 days. This new adsorbent also showed high selectivity for the uranyl ion, and its selectivity for metal ions was found to decrease in the following order: U>Cu>Fe>Ca>Mg>Ni>Zn>Pb>V>Co. The adsorption selectivity for uranium is significantly higher than that for vanadium. In addition, preparation of this modified adsorbent consumes much smaller amounts of the toxic acrylonitrile monomer than the conventional preparation methods of AO-based polyethylene fibers.