The present paper aims to survey the literature and also to present our latest results on the uptake of radiocations and their inactive homologues on different titanosilicate materials (ETS-4, ETS-10, CST, AM-2, AM-3, AM-4, etc.). The influence of physical parameters, chemical composition and modification, structure and uptake properties relationship is highlighted. The potential use of these materials in the separation of radionuclides (for environmental and medical purposes), the retention mechanisms (uranium on ETS-10) and the immobilisation of retained radiocations in titanosilicate-type waste forms are further discussed. Finally, we conclude with the benefit of using titanosilicates as cleaning agents for radioactive effluents and suggest the need for and the direction of further investigations, before the potential scale-up of such technologies to an industrial level. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.