Uranyl ion adsorption studies on synthesized phosphoryl functionalised MWCNTs: a mechanistic approach

A novel and efficient sorbent: phosphoryl multiwalled carbon nanotubes (PS-MWCNTs) were synthesized by modifying MWCNTs with phosphoryl functional groups. PS-MWCNTs possessed excellent uranium adsorption capacity (194.17 mg g−1) with a wide range of pH values (> 2) and short adsorption equilibrium time (10 min). The isotherm models revealed that the U(VI) adsorption mechanism of PS-MWCNTs mainly belonged to chemical adsorption. Furthermore, the XPS analysis showed that the main forces between uranium ions and PS-MWCNTs were attributed to the phosphoryl functional groups.