Issue 52, 2015

Entrapment of radioactive uranium from wastewater by using fungus-Fe3O4 bio-nanocomposites

Abstract

Magnetically separable adsorbents with high sorption capacity for nuclear wastewater treatment have been successfully synthesized on the basis of fungus-Fe3O4 nanoparticle bio-nanocomposites through a simple co-culture method. Experiments demonstrated that fungus-functionalized Fe3O4 nanoparticles can be beneficial for avoiding the phenomenon of aggregation for Fe3O4 nanoparticles and effectively separating the adsorbents from the contaminated water after adsorption without sacrificing the performances of magnetic adsorbent Fe3O4. Indeed, the bio-nanocomposites with improved sorption capacity can be attributed to the quasi-monodisperse Fe3O4 nanomaterials uniformly grown on the macro-scale fungus body. Furthermore, the promising adsorbents with high biological activity can effectively and synergistically remove the radioactive ions from nuclear wastewater with the saturated sorption capacity up to 171 mg g−1 for (UO2)2+ ions. The fast adsorption process can guarantee that the polluted water could be recovered within only four hours. Our results clearly indicate that the bio-nanocomposites could be used as cost-effective radioactive adsorbents.

Graphical abstract: Entrapment of radioactive uranium from wastewater by using fungus-Fe3O4 bio-nanocomposites

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
01 Mar 2015
Accepted
20 Apr 2015
First published
22 Apr 2015

RSC Adv., 2015,5, 41611-41616

Author version available

Entrapment of radioactive uranium from wastewater by using fungus-Fe3O4 bio-nanocomposites

L. Li, M. Xu, M. Chubik, M. Chubik, A. Gromov, G. Wei and W. Han, RSC Adv., 2015, 5, 41611 DOI: 10.1039/C5RA03643G

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