Construction of a Bifunctional Redox-Site Conjugated Covalent–Organic Framework for Photoinduced Precision Trapping of Uranyl Ions

The performance of covalent–organic frameworks (COFs) for the photocatalytic extraction of uranium is greatly limited by the number of adsorption sites. Herein, inspired by electronegative redox reactions, we designed a nitrogen–oxygen rich pyrazine connected COF (TQY-COF) with multiple redox sites as a platform for extracting uranium via combining superaffinity and enhanced photoinduction. The preorganized bisnitrogen–bisoxygen donor configuration on TQY-COF is entirely matched with the typical geometric coordination of hexavalent uranyl ions, which demonstrates high affinity (tetra-coordination). In addition, the presence of the carbonyl group and pyrazine ring effectively stores and controls electron flow, which efficaciously facilitates the separation of e^–/h⁺ and enhances photocatalytic performance. The experimental results show that TQY-COF removes up to 99.8% of uranyl ions from actual uranium mine wastewater under the light conditions without a sacrificial agent, and the separation coefficient reaches 1.73 × 10⁶ mL g^–1 in the presence of multiple metal ions, which realizes the precise separation in the complex environment. Importantly, DFT calculations further elucidate the coordination mechanism of uranium and demonstrate the necessity of the presence of N/O atoms in the photocatalytic adsorption of uranium.