Extreme water swelling induced pore-reconfiguration of hydrospongel for ultrafast and selective trapping of ReO4−/99TcO4− from nuclear wastewater

Technetium-99 ( 99 Tc), predominantly exists as the form of hypermobile 99 TcO 4 − anion, poses dual issues in separation interference and environmental pollution risks in nuclear wastewater. This study engineered a hydrospongel adsorbent through emulsion-templated polymerization and a new concept of swelling-induced pore reconfiguration (SIPR) was defined. The long-standing trade-off between adsorption rate and capacity get to reconcile driven by SIPR strategy. Interconnected pore construction effectively minimized trans -scale mass transfer resistance while the specific recognition sites anchored in internal get fully exposure, enabling record 99 TcO 4 − uptake kinetics (equilibrium within 5 min) and exceptional saturation capacity (884.95 mg g −1 ) in shapeable adsorbents. Integrating experiments and density functional theory (DFT) reveal dual mechanism of molecular electrostatic-chelating assisted ion exchange trapping 99 TcO 4 − . This adaptive design overcame the dual restrictions of spatial-scale and steric hindrance of adsorption sites in traditional adsorbents, establishing a paradigm for interconnected pore polymer adsorbents expand into engineering applications in nuclear wastewater remediation.