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The Interaction of Two Emerging Pollutants, Radionuclides and Microplastics: In-Depth Thermodynamic Studies in Water, Seawater, and Wastewater
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This study examined how two radioactive isotopes — uranium-232 and americium-241 — interact with polyurethane and polylactic acid microplastics in freshwater, seawater, and wastewater under varying pH and temperature conditions. Microplastics were found to adsorb both radionuclides, with temperature and pH strongly influencing the binding, though natural water chemistry reduced adsorption efficiency significantly. The findings raise concern that microplastics in nuclear-adjacent or contaminated water bodies could act as carriers, concentrating and potentially transporting radioactive pollutants through aquatic systems.
Microplastics and radionuclides pose significant challenges to the sustainable management of water systems. The interaction of uranium-232 and americium-241 with polyurethane (PU) and polylactic acid (PLA) microplastics has been investigated in aqueous laboratory and environ-mental solutions (e.g., seawater and wastewater) as a function of temperature in various pH (4, 7, 9). The temperature increase affects positively the binding of uranium-232 and americium-241. The highest adsorption efficiency for uranium and americium is observed at the neutral and al-kaline pH region, respectively. In environmental water samples (pH ~8) the adsorption efficiency decreases significantly due to the competitive adsorption of other metals present in natural wa-ters (e.g., Ca2+) as well as the stabilization of the actinides (particularly uranium) in solution (e.g., UO2(CO3)34-). The solution composition which governs both the actinide speciation, and the type of surface-active sites is strongly associated with the surface adsorption thermodynamics and de-termines the values of the associated parameters (ΔΗo and ΔSo). Generally, the values of ΔΗo and ΔSo are positive indicating an entropy-driven reaction. However, in the case of the U(VI) adsorp-tion by PLA in seawater samples both ΔΗo and ΔSo values become negative suggesting an enthal-py-driven binding mechanism associated with a decline in randomness at the surface upon ad-sorption.
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