Ultrafast high-performance extraction of uranium from seawater without pretreatment using an acylamide- and carboxyl-functionalized metal–organic framework

Abstract

Extraction of uranium from seawater is very important to overcome the growing crisis in the sustainable development of energy, and consequently has attracted an enormous amount of attention. Herein, we report the application of MOF materials in the extraction of uranium from seawater. Without any pre-treatment and within one minute, this MOF material shows a one-off extraction efficiency of 0.53 mg g⁻¹ from 1 L artificial seawater in the concentration of 6 ppb, suggesting its significant potential for the extraction of uranium from seawater. This significant ability is mainly dependent on free standing carboxyl groups in the MOF channel that coordinate to UO²⁺ ions via the U–O coordination bond.