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Adsorption and recovery of U(VI) from actual acid radioactive wastewater with low uranium concentration using thioacetamide modified activated carbon from liquorice residue

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Abstract

In this paper, cheap liquorice residue was used to prepare activated carbon (AC), thioacetamide (TAA) was used to modify the AC, and the adsorption experiments were conducted in the simulated acid radioactive wastewater with low uranium concentration to study the adsorption behavior and mechanism for uranium by TAA modified AC (TAA–AC). The removal efficiency by TAA–AC was 92.1–98.2% from the 1 mg L−1 uranium solution at pH 2–6. The adsorption equilibrium data were well fitted by Dubinin–Radushkevich model, and the maximum adsorption capacity was estimated to be 340 mg g−1. TAA–AC showed an enhanced selectivity for uranium in the presence of competitive ions. Furthermore, the adsorption experiments were conducted in the actual acid radioactive wastewater with low uranium concentration from an in situ leach uranium mine. The high adsorption rate (98.3%) and selectivity (Kd = 3.78×104 mL g−1) for uranium were observed in the actual acid radioactive wastewater, and the adsorption rate was found to maintain 96.2% over six cycles of adsorption–desorption.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U1401231, 11405081 and 51704170), the Development Program for Science and Technology for National Defense (B3720132001), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M612569), and the Research Foundation of Education Bureau of Hunan Province (16C1386).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, China

    Yan Tan & Dexin Ding

  2. Key Discipline Laboratory for National Defense for Biotechnology in Uranium Mining and Hydrometallurgy, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China

    Yan Tan, Le Li, Hui Zhang, Dexin Ding, Zhongran Dai, **hua Xue, **quan Liu, Nan Hu & Yongdong Wang

  3. School of Public Health, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China

    Yan Tan, Le Li, **hua Xue & **quan Liu

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  1. Yan Tan
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Correspondence to Dexin Ding.

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Tan, Y., Li, L., Zhang, H. et al. Adsorption and recovery of U(VI) from actual acid radioactive wastewater with low uranium concentration using thioacetamide modified activated carbon from liquorice residue. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 317, 811–824 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-018-5952-8

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