Radioactive elements such as iodine (e.g., ¹²⁹I or ¹³¹I isotopes), which is discharged into the environment as a result of nuclear detonations and reactor accidents, has a negative impact on human health and the ecosystem [1-3]. Radioactive iodine can be discharged as a direct aqueous pollutant when nuclear fission reactors are cooled with water. Both the Chernobyl and Fukushima nuclear disasters resulted in huge amounts of radioactive iodine being released into the atmosphere (the majority of which was subsequently deposited on the soil, where it leached into water), as well as directly into water bodies [1-3]. Medical is a secondary source of radioactive iodine, as radioactive isotopes are commonly employed for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Also, seawater is a natural source of iodine, due to that, the iodine can move into drinking water aquifers, causing increased iodine levels. The removal of radioactive elements such as iodine have been the target of numerus studies using different adsorption methods. However, most of the research to far has concentrated on the adsorption of iodine gas or iodine from organic solvents. There have been few cases of iodine removal from water at room temperature [1-3].

Nanotechnology have been widely used in many research projects related to environmental issues such as suitable energy and remediations [4-21].

The major goal of this research is to synthesize and investigate different nanoporous silicates with different pore size based on synthetic and naturally occurring materials such as zeolites modified with silver to remove iodine from water with high selectivity. The resultant materials are thoroughly investigated, via numerous characterization techniques such as XRD, XRF, SEM/EDX, TEM, and BET surface area measurements. The adsorption study shows a great promises for the resultant composites. For example, iodine was removed from aqueous solutions using synthetic zeolite-13X-Ag (Ag-13X) nanocomposites. The Ag-13X composites results revealed a high removal efficiency (up to 84% removal of iodine from aqueous media) compared to 13X that remove only 22% of iodine under the same adsorption conditions.

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