Amino modified nanofibers anchored to Prussian blue nanoparticles selectively remove Cs from water.

To improve the selective separation performance of silica nanofibers (SiO NFs) for cesium ions (Cs) and overcome the defects of Prussian blue nanoparticles (PB NPs), PB/SiO-NH NFs were prepared to remove Cs from water. Among them, 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) underwent an alkylation reaction with SiO, resulting in the formation of a dense Si-O-Si network structure that decorated the surface of SiO NFs. Meanwhile, the amino functional groups in APTES combined with Fe and then reacted with Fe to form PB NPs, which anchored firmly on the aminoated SiO NFs surface. In our experiment, the maximum adsorption capacity of PB/SiO-NH NFs was 111.38 mg/g, which was 31.5 mg/g higher than that of SiO NFs. At the same time, after the fifth cycle, the removal rate of Cs by PB/SiO-NH NFs adsorbent was 75.36% ± 3.69%. In addition, the adsorption isotherms and adsorption kinetics of PB/SiO-NH NFs were combined with the Freundlich model and the quasi-two-stage fitting model, respectively. Further mechanism analysis showed that the bond between PB/SiO-NH NFs and Cs was mainly a synergistic action of ion exchange, electrostatic adsorption and membrane separation.