Amidoxime-functionalized polymer fibers are currently the state-of-the-art in adsorbent materials for extracting uranium from seawater. Despite significant advancements made over the past decade toward increasing the uranium adsorption capacity, there is still very little understanding of how these adsorbents function. For instance, it is not clear what factors determine their affinity and selectivity for particular metal ions in seawater. Our research seeks to provide a rationalization of the impact that representative molecular functionalities and their interactions with different metal ions have on the performance of complex polyamidoxime systems. We discuss the results of combined quantum chemical simulations and spectroscopic studies both for conventional adsorbents reported in the literature and newly designed systems synthesized at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. An emphasis is placed on demonstrating the molecular level understanding of selective metal ion recognition by amidoxime-based sorbents.<br/>

Selective recognition of metal ions in seawater by amidoxime-functionalized polymers

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.