Song Yanpei, Hou Linxiao, Lan Pui Ching, Xing Zhiwei, Sun Qi, Lv Jia, Li Jingwei, Zhang Daliang, Dai Zhifeng, AlShahrani Thamraa, Ma Shengqian
Department of Chemistry, University of North Texas, 1508 W Mulberry St, Denton, TX, USA.
Zhejiang Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Chemical Engineering Manufacture Technology, College of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Nat Commun. 2025 Aug 2;16(1):7093. doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-62501-7.
The demand for mining metals via electrodeposition drives the need for high-performance electrodes. Traditional adsorbents are electrically insulating, limiting efficiency due to poor electrical contact. We overcome this by infiltrating conductive polymers into adsorbent pores, enhancing electrical connectivity and aligning chelators. This improves electrical pathways, enabling rapid nucleation and high space-time efficiency. Electrochemical uranium uptake from spiked seawater reaches 26.5 g uranium per gram of adsorbents, four times higher than electrodes mixing adsorbents with carbon black, and two orders of magnitude higher than physicochemical methods. The system also achieves uranium mining from natural seawater at 17.4 mg g with an enrichment index of 1.1 × 10⁷. This strategy offers a blueprint for designing electrodes with better electronic access to active sites, boosting performance in electrically driven processes.
通过电沉积开采金属的需求推动了对高性能电极的需求。传统吸附剂是电绝缘的，由于电接触不良而限制了效率。我们通过将导电聚合物渗透到吸附剂孔隙中来克服这一问题，增强电连通性并使螯合剂排列整齐。这改善了电子通路，实现了快速成核和高时空效率。从加标海水中电化学提取铀的量达到每克吸附剂26.5克铀，比将吸附剂与炭黑混合的电极高出四倍，比物理化学方法高出两个数量级。该系统还能从天然海水中以17.4毫克/克的量开采铀，富集指数为1.1×10⁷。这一策略为设计能更好地电子接入活性位点的电极提供了蓝图，可提高电驱动过程中的性能。
