Actinide sequestration using self-assembled monolayers on mesoporous supports.
Surfactant templated synthesis of mesoporous ceramics provides a versatile foundation upon which to create high efficiency environmental sorbents. These nanoporous ceramic oxides condense a huge amount of surface area into a very small volume. The ceramic oxide interface is receptive to surface functionalization through molecular self-assembly. The marriage of mesoporous ceramics with self-assembled monolayer chemistry creates a powerful new class of environmental sorbent materials called self-assembled monolayers on mesoporous supports (SAMMS). These SAMMS materials are highly efficient sorbents whose interfacial chemistry can be fine-tuned to selectively sequester a specific target species, such as heavy metals, tetrahedral oxometalate anions, and radionuclides. Details addressing the design, synthesis, and characterization of SAMMS materials specifically designed to sequester actinides, of central importance to the environmental cleanup necessary after 40 years of weapons-grade plutonium production, as well as evaluation of their binding affinities and kinetics are presented.