Radiation synthesis of ionic liquid–functionalized silica-based adsorbents: a preliminary investigation on its application for removal of ReO4− as an analog for TcO4−

The decontamination of radioactive TcO 4 − from nuclear wastes is becoming increasingly crucial for spent nuclear fuel reprocessing and environmental remediation. In this work, a series of ionic liquid–immobilized silica-based adsorbents (SVIL-Cn, n = 1, 4, 8) were newly synthesized using the radiation-induced grafting of 4-vinylbenzyl chloride onto silanized silica and subsequent functionalization with 1-methylimidazole, 1-butylimidazole, or 1-octylimidazole. The synthesis conditions such as the solvent, absorbed dose, and monomer concentration were investigated in detail, and the resulting adsorbents were characterized by elemental analysis, FT-IR, SEM, and TGA. In batch experiments, the adsorbents exhibited a high ReO 4 − (a nonradioactive surrogate of TcO 4 − ) removal efficiency over a wide pH range (3 ~ 8), and SVIL-C1 showed a maximum adsorption capacity of 70.62 mg g −1 towards ReO 4 − . In addition, their adsorption performance barely changed after 800 kGy radiation. The column experiments for treating simulated radioactive wastewater showed that the SVIL-Cn adsorbents could selectively separate TcO 4 − /ReO 4 − from a variety of fission products, and they could be recycled four times with negligible capacity loss. Lastly, XPS and FT-IR analysis confirmed that the adsorption proceeded via an ion-exchange mechanism. The results showed that these adsorbents are suitable for the efficient removal of TcO 4 − /ReO 4 − from radioactive wastewater with complex compositions. Graphical abstract