Carbon materials have a long history in adsorption from both air and liquids.  Dominated by activated carbons, the surface chemistry and high surface areas dominate these adsorption phenomena.   For selective metal chelation, however, the surface must be modified to impart preferential adsorption of metals.  Polymerizing inside the porosity allows this selectivity enhancement with the caveat that the polymer must be accessible within the porosity.  Free radical polymerization on a carbon surface also exploits the conductivity of the carbon toward delocalizing the radical thus decreasing the polymerization efficiency.  To counter this, sonication has been utilized to enhance radical formation and increase the polymerization efficiency.  In addition to this, carbon composites such as oxidized polyacrylonitrile fibers have been utilized to overcome the limitations of low graft yields achieved on a carbon surface.  Utilizing these methods has allowed the generation of an adsorbent with a seawater capacity of 5 mg-U/g-ads.  The efforts to increase the polymerization efficiency and uranium capacity leading to this high capacity will be discussed. <br/> <br/>This work is funded by the Fuel Resources Campaign in the Fuel Cycle Research and Development Program, Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).<br/>

Carbon materials for seawater uranium extraction

249th National Meeting (2015)

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