Vanadium is a strategic metal whose demand has increased significantly due to its use in renewable energy storage devices – e.g., vanadium redox flow batteries. Consequently, several low-grade vanadium resources such as carbonaceous shales and stone coal as well as secondary streams such as vacuum residue are being considered for vanadium recovery. In this work, we present a vanadium-selective cellulose-based adsorbent that can extract vanadium from dilute streams. Our cellulose adsorbent was functionalized with amidoxime functional groups through a two-step process -  first adding nitrile groups to the surface followed by the conversion of nitrile groups to amidoxime. By using an organic complexing agent, the vanadium adsorption capacity was increased by over a factor of 4, from 70 mg g<sup>-1</sup> to 320 mg g<sup>-1</sup>. Following adsorption, vanadium was found to be easily recovered through elution with dilute sulfuric acid (0.1 M) which makes the adsorbent promising for future applications.

Amidoxime-functionalized cellulose adsorbent for enhanced separation of vanadium

ACS Spring 2022

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