Efficient uranium adsorbent prepared by grafting amidoxime groups on dopamine modified graphene oxide

In this study, a novel amidoxime functionalized graphene oxide adsorbent (GO-D-AO), based on the reaction of dopamine modified graphene oxide with acrylamide diacetonitrile and on the reaction of amidoximation, was successfully designed and prepared to effectively adsorb U(VI) ions. GO-D-AO was characterized by SEM, FT-IR, XRD and XPS techniques, and then applied as the adsorbent for the U(VI) adsorption. The GO-D-AO contained more amidoximation groups after the amidoximation modification due to the use of acrylamide diacetonitrile modifier. A series of adsorption experiments were carried out to investigate the influence factors in the adsorption process, including the pH values, contact time, temperature and initial concentration of U(VI) solution. The U(VI) maximum adsorption capacity of GO-D-AO was 1823.6 mg.g(-1), which was significantly higher than that of GO because of the excellent chelating ability of amidoxime group with U(VI) ions. And the U(VI) adsorption process of GO-D-AO fitted well with the Langmuir model and the pseudo-second-order kinetic model, indicating the adsorption process was monolayer and chemical adsorption.