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Prussian blue-coated magnetic nanoparticles for removal of cesium from contaminated environment

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Abstract

A large amount of radioactive cesium (Cs) has been released into natural environment following the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan in 2011. Much effort has been directed at capturing Cs and remediation of the contaminated environment. However, conventional sorbents, such as Prussian blue and zeolites cannot be easily recovered once spread into an open environment. Here, we develop new nano-sorbent based on the magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) functionalized with Prussian blue (PB) that possess both high Cs adsorption capacity (96 mg Cs/g sorbent) and large distribution coefficient (3.2 × 104 mL/g at 0.5 ppm Cs concentration). The developed sorbents possess good value of saturation magnetization (20 emu/g) allowing for rapid and ease of sorbent separation from the Cs solution after treatment using magnetic field. This Cs magnetic nano-sorbent can offer high potential for the use in large scale remediation of a Cs contaminated environment as well as the possibility of novel Cs decorporation drugs that can be magnetically assisted for accelerated excretion of radiocesium from the human body.

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Acknowledgments

This work is supported by the National Research University Project of Thailand, Office of Higher Education Commission and the Thailand Research Fund. Financial supports provided from The Thailand Research Fund/Thailand Office of Higher Education Commission (RTA5480007) to P.T. is gratefully acknowledged. C.T. thanks the support from SIIT, Thammasat University. P.S. gratefully acknowledges research grant from the Thailand Research Fund (MRG5580196). We are grateful to Manoj Yomjinda at Asian Institute of Technology for his kind assistance in ICP measurement.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Bio-Chemical Engineering and Technology, Sirindhorn International Institute of Technology (SIIT), Thammasat University, Pathum Thani, 12121, Thailand

    Chakrit Thammawong, Pakorn Opaprakasit & Paiboon Sreearunothai

  2. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Bangkok, 10400, Thailand

    Pramuan Tangboriboonrat

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  1. Chakrit Thammawong
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  2. Pakorn Opaprakasit
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  3. Pramuan Tangboriboonrat
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  4. Paiboon Sreearunothai
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Correspondence to Paiboon Sreearunothai.

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Thammawong, C., Opaprakasit, P., Tangboriboonrat, P. et al. Prussian blue-coated magnetic nanoparticles for removal of cesium from contaminated environment. J Nanopart Res 15, 1689 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11051-013-1689-z

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