The removal of uranium using novel temperature sensitive urea formaldehyde resin: adsorption and fast regeneration.
A novel adsorbent of temperature sensitive urea formaldehyde (TS UF) resin was synthesized by base/acid two step synthetic strategy with low formaldehyde/urea mole ratio of 0.8. The sorption kinetics of TS UF resin obeys the pseudo second order model, and the adsorption is an endothermic process. The Langmuir model can well describe the sorption isotherms, through which the Qmax is calculated to be 99.2 mg/g for uranium (VI) at pH 6.0 and T 298 K. The characterized results show that the functional groups NH and CH2OH in TS UF resin have been involved in uranium sorption via chemical interaction. The temperature sensitive property of TS UF resin significantly accelerates the regeneration of TS UF resin, which can be fast regenerated within 15 min at its low critical solution temperature 333 K and exhibits high removal efficiency of uranium (VI) >90% over 5 cycles. Therefore, TS UF resin can be as a promising sorbent for the uranium (VI) removal from wastewater due to its low cost, easy fabrication, high efficiency and fast regeneration. This work can not only boost the exploration of novel adsorbent materials, but also promote the investigations of the regeneration and reusability of adsorbents.
The Science of the total environment