NUKLEONIKA 2006, 51(Suppl. 1):s61-s67

DEVELOPMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL PURIFICATION MATERIALS WITH SMART FUNCTIONS

Hirohisa Yamada1, Yujiro Watanabe2, Kenji Tamura1

1 Ecomaterials Center, National Institute for Materials Science, 1-1 Namiki, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0044, Japan
2 College of Environmental Engineering and Architecture, Kanazawa Institute for Technology, 7-1 Ohgigaoka, Nonoichi, Ishikawa 921-8501, Japan

For an environmental-friendly sustainable society, the global environmental problems should be solved. Here we outline our recent results of environment purification materials with smart functions. For the effective adsorbent for remediation process, zeolite coated with layered double hydroxide (LDH) was prepared by the precipitation of LDH on zeolite-LTA under hydrothermal treatment. This multifunctional material has a possible application for simultaneous uptake of harmful cations and anions, and minimizes environmental pollution during municipal and industrial water management. For novel material for the nuclear waste management, zeolite with hydroxyapatite layers on its surface was obtained by a hydrothermal method on the basis of the cation exchange of Ca2+ in zeolite for NH4+ in solution. The novel nanocomposite is an ideal material for adsorbing and fixing radioactive elements for geological time-scale.