Structural and interfacial microenvironment modulation of two-dimensional layered niobium phosphate to enhance uranium adsorption

To address the environmental and resource challenges arising from the advancement of the nuclear power industry, it becomes imperative to foster the development of efficient and expeditious materials for uranium adsorption. Here, for the first time, a kind of niobium phosphate with improvement of interlayer spacing and hydrophilicity (NbP-8) is employed by crystal phase modulation for uranium adsorption, which synergistically realizes structural and interfacial microenvironment modulation. Characterizations demonstrate that the expanded interlayer spacing contributes to accommodation of uranyl which increases adsorption capacity, and the enhanced hydrophilicity reduces infiltration time and greatly accelerates the adsorption rate. Consequently, NbP-8 possesses exceptional adsorption capacity of 1470.4 mg g−1, ultra-fast adsorption rate with an equilibrium time of 1 min and high selectivity, delivering one of the best phosphate uranium adsorbents. Moreover, this work opens a new venue for optimizing performance of phosphate by changing the crystal phase to modulate structure and interfacial microenvironment for uranium adsorption.