Selectivity

Geology

Organic chemistry

Cationic polymerization

Sorption

Groundwater

Biology

Human decontamination

Contamination

Radical

Nuclear chemistry

Ion exchange

Adsorption

Engineering

Catalysis

Inorganic chemistry

Chemistry

Geotechnical engineering

Ecology

Environmental remediation

Metal

Scavenger

Waste management

Radioactive waste

Angewandte Chemie International Edition

99 Tc contamination at legacy nuclear sites is a serious and unsolved environmental issue. The selective remediation of 99 TcO4- in the presence of a large excess of NO3- and SO42- from natural waste systems represents a significant scientific and technical challenge, since anions with a higher charge density are often preferentially sorbed by traditional anion-exchange materials. We present a solution to this challenge based on a stable cationic metal-organic framework, SCU-102 (Ni2 (tipm)3 (NO3 )4 ), which exhibits fast sorption kinetics, a large capacity (291 mg g-1 ), a high distribution coefficient, and, most importantly, a record-high TcO4- uptake selectivity. This material can almost quantitatively remove TcO4- in the presence of a large excess of NO3- and SO42- . Decontamination experiments confirm that SCU-102 represents the optimal Tc scavenger with the highest reported clean-up efficiency, while first-principle simulations reveal that the origin of the selectivity is the recognition of TcO4- by the hydrophobic pockets of the structure.

Successful Decontamination of 99TcO4− in Groundwater at Legacy Nuclear Sites by a Cationic Metal‐Organic Framework with Hydrophobic Pockets