Waste feather fiber based high extraction capacity bio-adsorbent for sustainable uranium extraction from seawater

Recycling uranium from seawater is of great significance to the development of nuclear industry. However, due to high salinity and low uranium concentration in seawater, there are still many challenges in current seawater uranium extraction technology. In this study, waste feather fibers (FF) were used as raw materials to develop a phosphonate-functionalized feather fiber (FF-PT). The study on the adsorption performance shows that FF-PT have good adsorption and recycling performance for uranium. The study on the adsorption performance shows that FF-PT have good adsorption and recycling performance for uranium. The adsorption capacity reaches up to 342.5 mg·g-1 in the 8 ppm uranium solution, and service life of at least 10 cycles were obtained. In addition, in the environment with high salinity and the coexistence of metal competitive ions, FF-PT also shows excellent selectivity, and it can reach 3.22 mg·g-1 adsorption capacity after immersed in natural seawater for 30 days. Combined with the results of economic analysis, we believe that the FF-PT has broad application prospects in the industrialized uranium extraction from seawater.