Ion sieving in graphene oxide membrane enables efficient actinides/lanthanides separation

Zhipeng Wang, Liqin Huang, Xue Dong, Tong Wu, Qi Qing, Jing Chen, Yuexiang Lu () and Chao Xu ()
Additional contact information
Zhipeng Wang: Tsinghua University
Liqin Huang: Tsinghua University
Xue Dong: Tsinghua University
Tong Wu: Tsinghua University
Qi Qing: Tsinghua University
Jing Chen: Tsinghua University
Yuexiang Lu: Tsinghua University
Chao Xu: Tsinghua University

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract Separation of actinides from lanthanides is of great importance for the safe management of nuclear waste and sustainable development of nuclear energy, but it represents a huge challenge due to the chemical complexity of these f-elements. Herein, we report an efficient separation strategy based on ion sieving in graphene oxide membrane. In the presence of a strong oxidizing reagent, the actinides (U, Np, Pu, Am) in a nitric acid solution exist in the high valent and linear dioxo form of actinyl ions while the lanthanides (Ce, Nd, Eu, Gd, etc.) remain as trivalent/tetravalent spheric ions. A task-specific graphene oxide membrane with an interlayer nanochannel spacing between the sizes of hydrated actinyl ions and lanthanides ions is tailored and used as an ionic cut-off filter, which blocks the larger and linear actinyl ions but allows the smaller and spheric lanthanides ions to penetrate through, affording lanthanides/actinides separation factors up to ~400. This work realizes the group separation of actinides from lanthanides under highly acidic conditions by a simple ion sieving strategy and highlights the great potential of utilizing graphene oxide membrane for nuclear waste treatment.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-35942-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-35942-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35942-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().