Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) can be designed to
allow uranium
extraction from seawater by incorporating photocatalytic linkers.
However, often sacrificial reagents are required for separating photogenerated
charges which limits their practical applications. Herein, we present
a COF-based adsorption-photocatalysis strategy for selective removal
of uranyl from seawater in the absence of sacrificial reagents. A
series of ternary and quaternary COFs were synthesized containing
the electron-rich linker 2,4,6-triformylphloroglucinol as the electron
donor, the electron-deficient linker 4,4′-(thiazolo[5,4-
d
]thiazole-2,5-diyl)dibenzaldehyde as the acceptor, and
amidoxime nanotraps for selective uranyl capture (with the quaternary
COFs incorporating [2,2′-bipyridine-5,5′-diamine-Ru(Bp)
2
]Cl
2
as a secondary photosensitizer). The ordered
porous structure of the quaternary COFs ensured efficient mass transfer
during the adsorption-photocatalysis capture of uranium from seawater
samples, with photocatalytically generated electrons resulting in
the reduction of adsorbed U(VI) to U(IV) in the form of UO
2
. A quaternary COF, denoted as COF 2-Ru-AO, possessed a high uranium
uptake capacity of 2.45 mg/g/day in natural seawater and good anti-biofouling
abilities, surpassing most adsorbents thus far. This work shows that
multivariate COF adsorption-photocatalysts can be rationally engineered
to work efficiently and stably without sacrificial electron donors,
thus opening the pathway for the economic and efficient extraction
of uranium from the earth’s oceans.