Development of technology for recovery of uranium from seawater is crucial for satisfying future energy demand. Amidoxime-functionalized polymer adsorbents prepared via radiation-induced graft polymerization (RIGP) has been the most promising adsorbents for recovering uranium from seawater. RIGP adsorbent properties depend on chemical properties of graft chains on the graft copolymers. Especially the incorporation of hydrophilic groups in addition to amidoxime ligands was the key to obtaining high recovery and uptake rates of uranium. Due to insolubility of immobilized graft chains on a trunk polymer, the correlation between polymer properties of the graft chains and uranium uptake performance has been little investigated. Thus, this work aims to investigate polymer structure and properties of non-grafted amidoxime-functionalized hydrophilic random copolymers. Elucidating the effect of polymer structure and properties to uranium uptake performance will help in designing more efficient polymeric adsorbents for uranium recovery from seawater. Several amidoxime-functionalized hydrophilic random copolymers were synthesized and the effect of the polymer structure and properties including chemical composition, molecular weight, glass transition temperature, and solubility to uranium uptake from model seawater are investigated.Sponsored by: Department of Energy � The Office of Nuclear Energy with Oak Ridge Naitonal Laboratory

Investigation of polymer structure and properties of amidoxime-functionalized hydrophilic random copolymers on performance of uranium recovery from seawater

244th National Meeting (2012)

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