The removal of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) from water is highly needed because of their increasing use and potential risk to the environment due to their toxic effects. Catalysis over AgNPs has received significant attention because of their highly catalytic performance. However, their use in practical applications is limited due to high cost and limited resources. Here, we present for the first time that the mussel-inspired Fe3O4@polydopamine (Fe3O4@PDA) nanocomposite can be used for efficient removal and recovery of AgNPs. Adsorption of AgNPs over Fe3O4@PDA was confirmed by TEM, FT-IR, XRD, TGA and magnetic property. The adsorption efficiency of AgNPs by Fe3O4@PDA was investigated as a function of pH, contact time, ionic strength and concentration of AgNPs. The kinetic data were well fitted to a pseudo-second order kinetic model. The isotherm data were well described by Langmuir model with a maximum adsorption capacity of 169.5 mg/g, which was higher than those by other adsorbents. Notably, the obtained AgNPs-Fe3O4@PDA exhibited highly catalytic activity for methylene blue reduction by NaBH4 with a rate constant of 1.44 × 10−3/s, which was much higher than those by other AgNPs catalysts. The AgNPs-Fe3O4@PDA promised good recyclability for at least 8 cycles and acid resistant with good stability.

In this work, the efficient extraction of uranium in solution using Al2O3-SiO2-T was reported. Kinetics and isotherm models indicated that the removal process of uranium onAl2O3-SiO2-T accorded with pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm model, which showed that the adsorption process was a uniform mono-layer chemical behavior. The maximum adsorption capacity of Al2O3-SiO2-T reached 738.7 mg g-1, which was higher than AlNaO6Si2 (349.8 mg g-1) and Al2O3-SiO2-NT (453.1 mg g-1), indicating that the addition of template could effectively improve the adsorption performance of Al2O3-SiO2 to uranium. Even after five cycles of adsorption-desorption, the removal percentage of uranium on Al2O3-SiO2-T remained 96%. Besides, the extraction efficiency of uranium on Al2O3-SiO2-T was 72.5% in simulated seawater, which suggested that the Al2O3-SiO2-T was expected to be used for uranium extraction from seawater. Further, the interaction mechanism between Al2O3-SiO2-T and uranium species was studied. The results showed that the electrostatic interaction and complexation played key roles in the adsorption process of Al2O3-SiO2-T to uranium.