Construction of novel magnesium oxide aerogel for highly efficient separation of uranium(VI) from wastewater

The environmental pollution problem brought by the development of nuclear energy, especially water pollution, has become a research hot-spot. Herein, a simple template-assisted calcination method was used for preparing MgO aerogels with different precursors (Mg(NO3)2, MgCl2 and MgSO4). A variety of characterization results proved that MgO-N aerogel prepared by Mg(NO3)2 exhibited a good 3D porous structure and might have significant adsorption performance. The adsorption experiments demonstrated that the adsorption capacity of MgO-N aerogel for U(VI) was as high as 1061.8 mg·g−1. The adsorption equilibrium time of U(VI) on MgO-N aerogel was about 100 min and MgO-N aerogel still exhibited high adsorption efficiency (79.1%) after four cycles. The electrostatic interaction and surface complexation were the keys to affect U(VI) adsorption performance on MgO aerogels. In one word, MgO-N aerogels with 3D porous structure and high adsorption capacity exhibited a good application value for removing U(VI) and would also provide a development direction for designing new materials with high adsorption capacity.