Xie Chen, Zeng Yizhi, Zhao Bohao, Lv Ning, Chen Guiming
a, High-Tech Institute of Xi'an Xi'an Shaanxi 710025 China
RSC Adv. 2025 Jul 23;15(32):26497-26505. doi: 10.1039/d5ra02388b. eCollection 2025 Jul 21.
Photocatalytic technology, as an emerging method for uranium extraction from seawater, has garnered significant attention due to its potential for high efficiency, low cost, and environmental sustainability. However, most existing photocatalytic materials are in powder form, which not only limits their effective recovery in natural seawater environments but also indicates that their reductive performance still has considerable room for improvement. To address these challenges, this study proposes a strategy to construct photocatalytic coatings on organic plastic films, enabling material recyclability. Additionally, through crystal facet engineering, the specific facets of the photocatalyst were exposed, forming electron-rich surfaces that enhance the tendency of atomic nuclei to lose electrons. This modification significantly strengthened the generation of reductive species, thereby improving the efficiency of photocatalytic reduction to tetravalent uranium species at the interface. Consequently, the uranium extraction performance from seawater was enhanced. Compared to existing P25-based recyclable materials, this method achieved approximately 1.64 times higher uranium extraction efficiency and maintained over 85% extraction efficiency after seven cycles of reuse. This study provides a simple and efficient new approach for uranium extraction from seawater, demonstrating considerable potential for practical applications.
光催化技术作为一种新兴的从海水中提取铀的方法，因其具有高效、低成本和环境可持续性的潜力而备受关注。然而，现有的大多数光催化材料为粉末形式，这不仅限制了它们在天然海水环境中的有效回收，还表明它们的还原性能仍有相当大的提升空间。为应对这些挑战，本研究提出了一种在有机塑料薄膜上构建光催化涂层的策略，以实现材料的可回收性。此外，通过晶面工程，暴露了光催化剂的特定晶面，形成富电子表面，增强了原子核失去电子的倾向。这种改性显著增强了还原物种的生成，从而提高了界面处光催化还原为四价铀物种的效率。因此，从海水中提取铀的性能得到了提高。与现有的基于P25的可回收材料相比，该方法实现的铀提取效率提高了约1.64倍，并且在重复使用七个循环后仍保持超过85%的提取效率。本研究为从海水中提取铀提供了一种简单高效的新方法，展示了可观的实际应用潜力。
