Uranium can be extracted from seawater for nuclear energy, find Chinese scientists

Uranium is the primary heavy metal used to fuel nuclear reactors, and has also been essential for nuclear power. It is a nonrenewable energy source and is traditionally mined from rock, but scientists now aim to extract its ore from seawater.

Scientists in China have developed an organic material to extract uranium from seawater. The material is said to be cost-effective and has “exceptional uranium adsorption capability.”

As per a recent study, scientists in China have developed an organic material which will enable the extraction of uranium from seawater.

Uranium is the primary heavy metal used to fuel nuclear reactors, and is also essential for nuclear power. It is a non-renewable energy source and is traditionally mined from rock, but scientists now aim to extract its ore from seawater.

This adsorbent shows much higher uranium selectivity with the uranium-to-vanadium ratios of 43.6 in simulated seawater and 8.62 in natural seawater, when compared to advanced adsorbents utilizing the amidoxime group for uranium extraction

This new absorbent is also environmentally friendly, i.e., it can be recycled, is cost-effective, can be easily synthesized, and shows great mechanical robustness.

The study further specifies that such DNA-based adsorbents may be utilized to retrieve other valuable metal ions from seawater, the reason being the distinct ability of the specific DNAzymes to recognize various metal ions.

The process of extracting the ions has proven to be very challenging for several reasons, including the fact that Earth’s oceans have very low concentrations of uranium ( 1 ton of seawater contains only 3.3 milligrams of uranium), as well as the presence of other ions that can interfere in a complex marine environment, a report stated.

This task of ion extraction can be compared to that of finding 1 gram of salt in 300,000 liters of fresh water.

Chinese scientists conducted adsorption experiments using natural seawater without augmentation.

The adsorbent shows excellent adsorption performance under prolonged immersion in natural seawater, particularly its ultra-high selectivity.

The material used for as adsorbent was made up of DNA enzymes, which is a specific type of DNA, and composite microspheres which is derived from ion exchanges between sodium alginate and calcium ions.