Single-atom tungsten engineering of MOFs with biomimetic antibiofilm activity toward robust uranium extraction from seawater

Uranium is the essential element for nuclear power industry. Selective uranium extraction from seawater is very attractive, but challenging because ubiquitous marine biofouling seriously impairs the uranium extraction ca-pacity and reusability of absorbents in bio-aggressive seawater. Herein, we construct a reusable nanozyme for uranium recovery from seawater based on atomically dispersed tungsten anchored on metal organic frameworks (W-UiO). We illustrate that W-UiO nanozyme mimics naturally occurring vanadium haloperoxidase that cata-lytically converting halides to biocidal hypobromous acid, inducing strong antibiofouling activity against marine microbial colonization. As demonstrated, W-UiO nanozyme shows superb reusability in raw seawater simulta-neously, preserving a 78.0% of its initial uranium capture capacity (6.8 times higher than its pristine counter-part) after five consecutive adsorption-desorption cycles. This study is anticipated to spur rationally realizing robust absorbents by mimicking the natural enzymes for practical application in uranium recovery from seawater.

Automated summary

A reusable nanozyme was constructed for uranium recovery from seawater using atomically dispersed tungsten anchored on metal organic frameworks. The nanozyme demonstrated strong antibiofouling activity and maintained high uranium capture capacity after multiple cycles.