Photochemically triggered self-extraction of uranium from aqueous solution under ambient conditions

Photocatalytic extraction of uranium from nuclear wastewater and seawater is a highly promising strategy to avoid environmental pollution and effectively recover uranium resources. Herein, we propose a novel strategy of photochemical for efficiently and high selectively extracting uranium from aqueous solution. The excited UO22+ at a suitable pH range were utilized for initiating the formation of hydrogen peroxide, which then directly reacted with UO22+ to form solid studtite (UO2)O2∙4 H2O. This photochemically triggered extraction approach could remove ∼100.0% of UO22+ from aqueous solution with U(VI) concentration of 10.0–200.0 ppm, and 62.7% of UO22+ from U(VI)-spiked real seawater after 24 hrs-irradiation under visible light even without additional electron-donor agents. The highly selective and high extraction efficiency towards uranium ranged in extremely wide concentrations demonstrated the powerful application potential in both the removal of uranium from nuclear wastewater and the extraction of uranium from seawater. Data will be made available on request.