Recently, Associate Professor Liu Youxing from the School of Materials Science and Engineering, together with his collaborators, published a research paper entitled “Weak localised electrons enhance electronic coherence for efficient photocatalytic uranium removal from nuclear wastewater” in the journal 《Nature Communications》
Photocatalytic uraniumremovalfrom nuclear wastewater is a highly promising technique for radionuclidemitigation.However, its practical application is severely hampered by the lowphoto-generated electron-hole pair separationefficiencyof photocatalytic system,which critically limits the generation of reactive oxygen species essential for uranium precipitation.
To tackle this challenge, this study proposes a strategy to enhance electronic coherence in covalent organic frameworks (COFs) by utilising weak electron localisation. By introducing fluorine atoms as electron-regulating elements to modulate local receptor states and electron phase matching, the strategy significantly promotes the directional migration and separation of photo-generated carriers, thereby enhancing the photocatalytic removal of uranium from nuclear wastewater. The study found that partially fluorinated covalent organic frameworks induce weak electron localisation and strong electron coherence, exhibiting the highest photogenerated carrier separation efficiency. A solar-to-chemical conversion efficiency of 1.52% was achieved, with 100% uranium removal efficiency across a pH range of 3-6, outperforming previously reported active materials. A self-designed flow-typereactor achieved 99% uranium removal efficiency and an outstanding uranium treatment capacity of 281.3 g m-2 day-1 under natural sunlight, significantly outperforming previously reported photocatalytic systems.
First author: YachaoXu , corresponding authors: Associate Professor Youxing Liuand Professor ShaojunGuo. This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
Article details:Yachao Xu, Ruolan Zhao, Youxing Liu*, Ying Wang, Zheng Lin, Zongqiang Sun, Peng Yu, Mingchuan Luo, Shaojun Guo*, Weak Localized Electrons Enhance Electronic Coherence for Efficient Photocatalytic Uranium Removal from Nuclear Wastewater,Nat.Commun.2026.
Link to the paper:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-69178-6
