LAUSR

Extraction of uranium(vi) from seawater has attracted much attention for its potential use in the nuclear energy field. In this work, we synthesized graphene oxide-polypyrrole (GO-PPy) through pyrrole monomer polymerization on graphene oxide (GO) with an aqueous solution at low temperature and prepared reduced graphene oxide-polypyrrole-zero-valent iron (rGO-PPy-Fe0) composites by chemical deposition. We characterized rGO-PPy-Fe0 using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The rGO-PPy-Fe0 composites were investigated for the removal of uranium from aqueous solution and simulated seawater. The experimental results demonstrated that the rGO-PPy-Fe0 adsorbent possessed a superior capacity for the adsorption of uranium at mg g-1 and μg g-1 at the pH value of seawater. The adsorption process conformed to the pseudo-second-order rate equation and the Langmuir isotherm model. Based on X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), we revealed the possible adsorption mechanism of uranium onto rGO-PPy-Fe0, which simulated a prospective potential of the adsorbent in seawater.