The research team of Bi Shi, a Chinese Academy of Engineering academician, has recently published in Energy & Environmental Science (JIF 30.067) a research paper “Engineering Robust Metal-Phenolic Network Membranes for Uranium Extraction from Seawater”. The first author is Wei Luo who is a Class 2016 doctoral student at Department of Biomass and Leather Engineering, Sichuan University. Professor Bi Shi, Professor Xuepin Liao and Dr. Junling Guo are the advisors for this research. And Sichuan University is the first work unit on this article.

Professor Bi Shi works at College of Light Industry and Textile and Food Engineering. By means of an interdisciplinary integration of leather, chemical engineering and material science, his research team has solved the problem of high selectivity and economic competitiveness in the extraction of uranium from seawater. As is stated in the abstract: “Here we engineered a biomass-derived microporous membrane, based on the interfacial formation of robust metal–phenolic networks (MPNs), for uranium capture from seawater. The MPN-based membranes showed a greater than ninefold higher uranium extraction capacity (27.81 μg) than conventional methods during a long-term cycling extraction of 10 L of natural seawater from the East China Sea. These results, coupled with our techno-economic analysis, demonstrate that MPN-based membranes are promising economically viable and industrially scalable materials for real-world uranium extraction.”

Figure 1.Polyphenol functionalization and formation of MPN-based microporous membrane.

Figure 2.Marine field studies and techno-economic analysis of uranium extraction from seawater

To read this research paper, please go to the link below：https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2018/ee/c8ee01438h#!divAbstract