The efficient removal of radioactive cesium (137Cs) from contaminated water around nuclear plants and/or after nuclear accidents has become an emerging issue since the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (Fukushima, Japan) disaster on March 11, 2011. Herein, we have demonstrated and compared the adsorption performances of both 137Cs and 133Cs using three potential adsorbents, zeolite (ZL), Prussian blue (PB) and graphene oxide (GO), in deionized water and simulated seawater. The adsorption efficiencies are determined in terms of the adsorbent amount, initial Cs concentration, and the effect of other competing ions in the system. In addition, the practical application of the materials was justified by evaluating the elution/retention of the adsorbed Cs with different volumes of solvent. Significantly, we illustrated a practical validation of a purification route for 137Cs-contaminated fly ash generated from nuclear power plant accidents, while PB can be a potential adsorbent for large-scale implementation.
The specific structural arrangement of atoms in the different crystalline phases of a polymorph material has a significant influence on their electrochemical behavior. Herein, we have demonstrated the proton conductivity of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanosheets based on their different crystalline phases. The successful preparation of three different crystalline phases including rutile (r-TiO2), anatase (a-TiO2) and brookite (b-TiO2) with the sheet size within nanometer range was confirmed using powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) analysis. The corresponding TiO2 membrane films were prepared through a reduced pressure-driven route followed by humidity and temperature-dependent proton conductivities measurement. At room temperature and 90% relative humidity, b-TiO2 shows a high proton conductivity of 3.04 × 10−3 S cm−1 which is almost one order higher than a-TiO2 (4.41 × 10−4 S cm−1) and two orders higher than that of the corresponding r-TiO2 (8.04 × 10−6 S cm−1). The activation energies below 0.35 eV for all samples suggest that the proton conduction occurred through the Grotthuss mechanism. The differences in the structural arrangement in each crystal phase of TiO2, which is responsible for the water adsorption ability, can be attributed to the current findings of different proton conductivity.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.