Electrochemical Uranium Extraction from Nuclear Wastewater of Fuel Production

Electrochemical uranium extraction has attracted increasing attention because of the fast kinetics, increased extraction capacity, and resistance to the interference of anions. However, current progress on electrochemical extraction of U( VI ) is limited to the aqueous solution systems without F − , which lack the strategy in real nuclear wastewater from nuclear fuel production. Herein, we developed an ion pair sites strategy of Ti δ+ - PO 4 3 − ion pair extraction sites in Ti( OH ) PO 4 for selective binding of UO 2 F x and efficient electrochemical uranium extraction in real nuclear wastewater. In real nuclear wastewater of fuel production facility experiments, the electrochemical extraction efficiency of uranium reached 99.6% within seven hours, corresponding to a remarkable extraction capacity of 6829 mg/g without saturation. The uranium was successfully recycled as powders with a high purity. This chapter paves an efficient way for electrochemical uranium recycling in real wastewater of nuclear production.