title: Cellulose nanofiber backboned Prussian blue nanoparticles as powerful adsorbents for the selective elimination of radioactive cesium.
abstract: On 11 March 2011, the day of the unforgettable disaster of the 9 magnitude Tohoku earthquake and quickly followed by the devastating Tsunami, a damageable amount of radionuclides had dispersed from the Fukushima Daiichi's damaged nuclear reactors. Decontamination of the dispersed radionuclides from seawater and soil, due to the huge amounts of coexisting ions with competitive functionalities, has been the topmost difficulty. Ferric hexacyanoferrate, also known as Prussian blue (PB), has been the most powerful material for selectively trapping the radioactive cesium ions; its high tendency to form stable colloids in water, however, has made PB to be impossible for the open-field radioactive cesium decontamination applications. A nano/nano combinatorial approach, as is described in this study, has provided an ultimate solution to this intrinsic colloid formation difficulty of PB. Cellulose nanofibers (CNF) were used to immobilize PB via the creation of CNF-backboned PB. The CNF-backboned PB (CNF/PB) was found to be highly tolerant to water and moreover, it gave a 139 mg/g capability and a million (106) order of magnitude distribution coefficient (Kd) for absorbing of the radioactive cesium ion. Field studies on soil and seawater decontaminations in Fukushima gave satisfactory results, demonstrating high capabilities of CNF/PB for practical applications.
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.
authors.forename: Adavan Kiliyankil
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Vipin
authors.affiliation: Policy Alternatives Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Bunshi
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Fugetsu
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japan.|Policy Alternatives Research Institute, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan.
authors.forename: Ichiro
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Sakata
authors.affiliation: School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan.
authors.forename: Akira
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Isogai
authors.affiliation: Institute of Carbon Science and Technology, Shinshu University, 4-17-1 Wakasato, Nagano 380-8553, Japan.
authors.forename: Morinobu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Endo
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Mingda
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
authors.forename: Mildred S
authors.initials: MS
authors.lastname: Dresselhaus