Efficient and magnetically recoverable U (VI) adsorbent: Fe3O4 loaded hypercrosslink copoly (styrene/maleic anhydride)

Here, copoly (styrene/maleic anhydride) was hypercrosslinked using a simple Friedel–Crafts acylation reaction to produce a novel porous hypercrosslink polymer bearing carboxy groups (C-SMA). As a support, C-SMA was loaded with Fe3O4 through a solvothermal method to produce a magnetic uranium adsorbent (Fe3O4@C-SMA), which was systematically characterized using FT-IR, TGA, SEM, XRD, VSM, BET, and XPS. Uranium adsorption was carried out by using Fe3O4@C-SMA under different conditions to evaluate its uranium adsorption capacity. The adsorbent shows good uranium adsorption performance (178 mg·g−1 at pH = 6), has excellent stability, and can be readily magnetically recovered. The porous framework of C-SMA avoided the magnetic agglomeration effect of bare Fe3O4. XPS analysis indicates that both the carboxy groups and Fe3O4 contribute to the uranium adsorption on Fe3O4@C-SMA.