Synthesis and characterization of magnetic copper–iron-titanate and uptake studies of americium from nuclear waste solutions

Abstract

Magnetic materials, which find enormous applications due to their benign nature, can have their efficiency and stability enhanced by incorporation of foreign materials and controlling the synthesis conditions. Herein carbon containing iron-titanate (TF) and copper–iron-titanate (CTF) magnetic materials were prepared by a solvo-thermal method in methanol at 200 °C/20 h. Physico-chemical analysis techniques, such as BET, PXRD, FE-SEM, HR-TEM, zeta potential, XPS and NH₃-TPD, were used to investigate the materials' structure and textural properties. Further, the prepared materials were used as a sorbent for the uptake of ²⁴¹Am radiotracer from low pH solutions. The adsorption studies showed excellent uptake efficiency for radioactive ²⁴¹Am by copper–iron-titanate (CTF), and it followed the Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second order sorption kinetics. In addition, 1/n calculated from the Freundlich isotherm (∼0.33) indicated the favourable sorption of ^152,154Eu (surrogate of ²⁴¹Am) sorption by both CTF and TF. The NH₃-TPD studies revealed a change in the electronic properties of the metal centre and supports the chemisorption based sorption behaviour of the CTF magnetic material. Desorption of the loaded metal ion was facile with 0.1 M HNO₃ and the CTF nanomaterial can be effectively reused.