A simple way to extract uranium from sea water. Free Technical Library News

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A simple way to extract uranium from seawater

17.10.2023

An international scientific team has presented a new, simple and effective method for extracting uranium from the waters of the World Ocean. The complex material used is highly selective towards uranium and does not interact with other molecules and metals in solution. This technology could be a promising alternative method for extracting a key component for nuclear power plants and treating nuclear reactor wastewater.

Uranium is an extremely valuable mineral that provides fuel for nuclear reactors around the world. In the oceans, the concentration of uranium is thousands of times higher than its reserves in the depths, but it is present in water in low concentrations (3,3 μg/l), which makes its extraction difficult. The main problem is the presence of other substances such as sodium, iron and calcium in much higher quantities in seawater.

Engineers used layered double hydroxides as the basis for their technology. This composite material is a layered structure with positively charged layers separated by negatively charged ions dissolved in water. These materials are already widely used to extract metals from liquids, are relatively simple to produce and can be easily modified.

To make the hydroxides selectively sensitive to uranium, the researchers introduced various lanthanide dopants such as neodymium, europium and terbium. Studies have shown that layered double hydroxides with the addition of neodymium interact with uranium 10 times more efficiently than with other metals dissolved in seawater.

The method also benefits from cost-effectiveness because the materials used in the process are fairly easy to produce and inexpensive, making them an attractive choice for large-scale uranium mining, according to Carolan Veliszek, one of the study's co-authors.

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