Influence of monovalent cations and CuO nanoparticles on X-nanozeolite in uranium anionic species separation from contaminated drinking water

The main purpose of this work was the modification of NaX nanozeolite using copper oxide nanoparticles and various monovalent cations such as K+, Cs+, and Ag+ in order to make the negatively charged zeolite surface accessible for anionic forms of uraniumwhich are themost dominant species of uraniumin the contaminated radioactive waters at natural pH. Various methods such as the X-ray fluorescence (XRF), X-ray powder diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electronmicroscopy (FE-SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) were used to characterize the final synthesized absorbents. Batch technique was used to study the adsorption behavior of uranium ions from polluted drinking water by NaX nanozeolite and its modified forms. In order to better understand the performance of them, the results were compared with those that were obtained for synthesizing bulk NaX zeolite and Na-form of clinoptilolite natural zeolite. Preliminary results indicated that uranium sorption increased as the loading level of CuO nanoparticles on NaX nanozeolite increased from 2.1 wt% to 11.2 wt%. In addition,from the obtained data, an increase in uranium removal efficiency resulted as charge/ionic radius ratio of exchanged cation decreased. Also, the effect of contact time, solid-liquid ratio, initial concentration and temperature on the adsorption process was studied. It is worth mentioning that, in this study, the sorption of uranium was performed under natural conditions of pH and the presence of competing cations and anions which are available in drinking waters.