Searching for the nano effect in Cu-HCF (II) particles to improve Cs sorption efficiency: Highlighting the use of intrinsic magnetism

Abstract The silica templating of Cu-HexaCyanoFerrate (HCF) is a classical technique which is often used to control the size and monodispersity thereby increasing the exposed surface area, and therefore the Cs sorption efficiency of what are normally highly aggregated nanoparticle systems. However, here we show that long term magnetic agitation of unfunctionalised aggregated Cu-HCF nanoparticles leads to a uniform and stable colloidal dispersion. This, we believe, is due to the intrinsic magnetic nature of Cu-HCF as seen by low temperature SQUID measurements. In this work we see that the Cs kinetics of magnetically dispersed Cu-HCF show a remarkable increase in the rate Cs sorption due particle disaggregation. Finally, the Cs sorption kinetics of these magnetically disaggregated particles proved similar to a chemically similar monodisperse silica templated sample.