Diaminomaleonitrile functionalized double-shelled hollow MIL-101 (Cr) for selective removal of uranium from simulated seawater

Abstract Hollow metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) have attracted wide interest because of their unique core-shell structure. As a novel uranium adsorbent, diaminomaleonitrile (DAMN) functionalized double-shelled hollow (DSHM) metal-organic framework of chromium(III) terephthalate was prepared by a post-synthetic method of grafting amino group onto coordinatively unsaturated sites (CUS). TEM, XRD, nitrogen sorption and FT-IR spectrometry were used to characterize the obtained DAMN functionalized hollow MOF. The maximum capacity of uranium adsorption is 601 mg g−1, which exceeds all known functionalized MIL-101 uranium adsorption materials. The optimal adsorption pH is 8 which is close to the pH of seawater. Furthermore, the high selectivity of uranium and high adsorption rate in simulated seawater provide a promising prospect to introduce DSHM-DAMN for the extraction of uranium from seawater. In this work, we first applied hollow MOF for uranium adsorption, which greatly improves the uranium adsorption performance of MOF materials; we also explored the practical application of hollow MOF materials.