Study on the adsorption properties of iodine by nitrogen-rich polycatecholamines and sodium lignosulfonate-modified polycatecholamines

Background Nuclear energy as a kind of clean energy has been vigorously developed. The possibility of nuclear leakage may discharge harmful substances, among which radioactive iodine is one of them. The iodine may be discharged into the environment in the form of vapor and solution, and the effective removal of them has obviously become an important and arduous task. Methods In this paper, two nitrogen-rich polymers, PY-PEI (poly(polyethyleneimine-pyrogallic)) and LS-PY-PEI (poly(Sodium lignosulfonate-polyethyleneimine-pyrogallic)) were successfully synthesized for iodine adsorption. 3) 3) Significant Findings: The experimental data showed that the capacities of the two for iodine capture in vapor were 3.57 g g -1 (PY-PEI) and 3.25 g g -1 (LS-PY-PEI), 1054 mg g -1 (PY-PEI) and 1035 mg g -1 (LS-PY-PEI) in iodine n-hexane organic solvent. Besides, both of them possessed rapid adsorption. Therefore, two efficient iodine adsorbent materials were successfully synthesized by designing nitrogen-rich sites and electron-rich groups in the molecules.