Production and Modification of Poly(Styrene-Acrylonitrile)-Polycarbonate Nanofibers and Evaluation of its Adsorption Behavior on Uranium in Aqueous Solutions

The removal and recovery of uranium from aqueous media has been considered by many of scientists and researchers since a long time ago. In this work it has been tried to produce the nano adsorbent that be able to separate the uranium from nuclear waste waters and the other aqueous media. For this purpose poly(styrene-acrylonitrile) nanofibers and their composite with polycarbonate nanofibers have been prepared and used as adsorbent of uranium after chemical modification. The chemical modification was performed by the conversion of nitrile groups to amidoxime groups by hydroxyl amine solution and akaline treatment by sodium hydroxide 2.5%. The amidoximation was confirmed by infrared spectroscopy. The maximum capacities of uranium adsorption were 79.8 and 38.5 mg U/g ads for poly(styrene-acrylonitrile) and poly(styrene-acrylonitrile)/polycarbonate composite respectively. The optimum pH was 4 for uranium adsorption. The desorption yield was more than 90% in  Na2CO3 1M /H2O2 1M solution.