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Nano Research 2022, 15(10): 8810-8818 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4559-0
Research Article | Issue | Published: 05 July 2022

In-situ oxidized tungsten disulfide nanosheets achieve ultrafast photocatalytic extraction of uranium through hydroxyl-mediated binding and reduction

Show Author's Information Huanhuan Liu1,§,  Jia Lei1,§,  Changyao Gong1,  Ye Li1,  Huimei Chen2,  Jiali Chen1,  Fengchun Wen1,  Dengjiang Fu1,  Yan Liu2( ),  Wenkun Zhu1( ),  Rong He1( )
State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Sichuan Civil-military Integration Institute, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, China

§ Huanhuan Liu and Jia Lei contributed equally to this work.

Keywords:
uranium, WS2 nanosheets, hydroxyl groups, in-situ oxidization, photoreduction ABSTRACT
Topics:
Photocatalysis
Cite this article:
Liu H, Lei J, Gong C, et al. In-situ oxidized tungsten disulfide nanosheets achieve ultrafast photocatalytic extraction of uranium through hydroxyl-mediated binding and reduction. Nano Research, 2022, 15(10): 8810-8818. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-4559-0
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Photoreduction of hexavalent uranium (U(VI)) by semiconductor provides a novel and effective avenue for uranium extraction. Unfortunately, the traditional metal oxide and sulfide semiconductors suffer from the lack of confinement sites to U(VI), which resulted in the long period (~ 1 h) to achieve a high U(VI) extraction efficiency of > 90%. Herein, we successfully constructed WS2 nanosheets and created in-situ oxidized domains on the surfaces (O-WS2) to promote the uranium extraction and the corresponding removal kinetics. In this system, the O7.7-WS2 nanosheets exhibited a considerable U(VI) extraction efficiency of > 90% within 20 min in 8 mg·L–1 U(VI)-containing solution, which represented the highly efficient U(VI) removal performance. In 200 mg·L–1 U(VI)-containing solution, the O7.7-WS2 nanosheets exhibited an extraction capacity of 652.4 mg·g–1. The mechanism study revealed that the oxidized surface tended to trap hydrogen atom and in-situ form hydroxyl groups in defect sites. Evidenced by a series of experiment, such as kinetic isotope effect, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, and X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectra, the in-situ formed hydroxyl groups participated in the uranium reduction, which dramatically enhanced uranium extraction kinetics and efficiency.


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About this article

In-situ oxidized tungsten disulfide nanosheets achieve ultrafast photocatalytic extraction of uranium through hydroxyl-mediated binding and reduction

Show Author's information Huanhuan Liu1,§, Jia Lei1,§, Changyao Gong1, Ye Li1, Huimei Chen2, Jiali Chen1, Fengchun Wen1, Dengjiang Fu1, Yan Liu2( ), Wenkun Zhu1( ), Rong He1( )
State Key Laboratory of Environment-friendly Energy Materials, National Co-innovation Center for Nuclear Waste Disposal and Environmental Safety, Sichuan Civil-military Integration Institute, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China
College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Anhui Normal University, Wuhu 241002, China

§ Huanhuan Liu and Jia Lei contributed equally to this work.

Abstract

Photoreduction of hexavalent uranium (U(VI)) by semiconductor provides a novel and effective avenue for uranium extraction. Unfortunately, the traditional metal oxide and sulfide semiconductors suffer from the lack of confinement sites to U(VI), which resulted in the long period (~ 1 h) to achieve a high U(VI) extraction efficiency of > 90%. Herein, we successfully constructed WS2 nanosheets and created in-situ oxidized domains on the surfaces (O-WS2) to promote the uranium extraction and the corresponding removal kinetics. In this system, the O7.7-WS2 nanosheets exhibited a considerable U(VI) extraction efficiency of > 90% within 20 min in 8 mg·L–1 U(VI)-containing solution, which represented the highly efficient U(VI) removal performance. In 200 mg·L–1 U(VI)-containing solution, the O7.7-WS2 nanosheets exhibited an extraction capacity of 652.4 mg·g–1. The mechanism study revealed that the oxidized surface tended to trap hydrogen atom and in-situ form hydroxyl groups in defect sites. Evidenced by a series of experiment, such as kinetic isotope effect, 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra, and X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectra, the in-situ formed hydroxyl groups participated in the uranium reduction, which dramatically enhanced uranium extraction kinetics and efficiency.

Keywords: uranium, WS2 nanosheets, hydroxyl groups, in-situ oxidization, photoreduction ABSTRACT

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Publication history
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Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 01 February 2022
Revised: 15 May 2022
Accepted: 19 May 2022
Published: 05 July 2022
Issue date: October 2022

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press 2022

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Nos. 21902130, 21906154, and 21976147), Sichuan Science and Technology Program (Nos. 2022YFG0371, 2020JDJQ0060, and 2020JDRC0089), and Natural Science Foundation of Anhui province (No. 2008085QB81). The numerical calculations in this paper have been done on Hefei advanced computing center.

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