Photocatalytic high-effective removal and recovery of uranium induced by benzyl alcohol with low cost and environment-kind

•Uranium can be removed efficiently in air under natural solar with addition of benzyl alcohol without photocatalyst.•The residual concentration of U(VI) after photo-autocatalysis is lower than the emission standard in GB 23727-2020.•The intermediate [UO2+, Ph·CHOH] caused by U(VI) and benzyl alcohol can improve the photosynthesis of H2O2.•The removal rate of simulated uranium-containing effluent could get to 99.08 %, suggesting great application potential. Photocatalysis, one of the environment-friendly and efficient technology, showed application prospects on uranium removal and recovery in spite of the expensive photocatalysts. Herein, we reported a novel strategy induced by benzyl alcohol for photo-autocatalytic removal and recovery of uranium, which achieved excellent removal rate and avoided the dependence on photocatalysts. The results showed that, in slightly acidic environments, the uranium removal rate could achieve over 99 % under air within an hour illumination via the redox reaction of radical ion pair [UO2+, Ph·CHOH], which can be produced by the photoactivation of benzyl alcohol for the active benzylic C(sp3) − H bonds. At the same time, benzyl alcohol was selectively oxidized to benzaldehyde, an important industrial feed stock of significance in fine and chemical industries. Moreover, uranium could be removed to 186 ppb within 4 h of illumination, which was up to the emission standard proposed in GB 23727–2020. This strategy exhibited excellent removal performance upon solar illumination and recovered uranium with 99.08 % removal rate in the existence of heteroions, which indicated that our strategy has important application potential.