Hollow multishelled structured graphdiyne realized radioactive water safe-discharging

High toxicity, and long-term retention of heavy metallic ions in surface water environment pose threats to the stability of ecosystems and vitality of creatures including human beings. The well-adopted approach always facing the challenge of sustainability and energy consumption. Moreover, discharging standard is rather strict for radioactive metallic element containing water, which makes finding an appropriate and effective way for ion-removing urgent. Particularly, among various treatment approaches to remove metal ions from water, solar-driven steam generation is considered as an eco-friendly and sustainable strategy, but the removing of radioactive ions is rarely considered. In this paper, with the bottom-up synthesis approach, we fabricated the 3D graphdiyne (GDY) with hollow multishelled structure (HoMS) for the first time. Because of the advantages of HoMS, a stable evaporation rate of 2.7 kg m-2 h-1 has been achieved by GDYHoMS. Notably, owning to the interaction between sp-C of GDY and the empty orbit of metallic atoms, the heavy metallic elements were intercepted in the GDY film, resulting an ultra-efficient ion removing ability. Especially, the ion concentration was decreased by six to seven orders magnitude for Sr2+ and Cs+-contained radioactive water after treatment, reaching the national radioactive water discharge standard, while the ion concentration for U(VI) has been decreased to meet the drinkable water standard. (c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The high toxicity and long-term retention of heavy metallic ions in surface water pose threats to ecosystems and vitality. Solar-driven steam generation is considered as an eco-friendly strategy, but the removal of radioactive ions is rarely considered. In this study, a 3D graphdiyne film with a hollow multishelled structure was fabricated, showing a high efficiency in removing ions, especially radioactive ions.