**Bipolar Uranium Extraction From Seawater With Ultra-Low Cell Voltage**
As common as uranium is in terrestrial environments, the world’s oceans surprisingly harbor about a thousand times more uranium—approximately 4.5 billion tons—than can be mined today. This abundant resource makes the extraction of uranium and other materials from seawater an intriguing prospect. However, it necessitates the development of a technological solution that can efficiently filter these highly diluted substances in an economically viable manner. Recent research has brought scientists closer to this goal.
The electrochemical method detailed in a paper by Yanjing Wang et al., published in Nature Sustainability, outlines a process that claims to recover up to 100% of the uranium found in seawater at a cost of approximately $83 per kilogram. This price is significantly lower than previous extraction methods and is competitive with current uranium spot prices, which range from $70 to $85. Nonetheless, a key challenge remains: scaling this lab-sized prototype to an industrial level.
A notable feature of this low-voltage method is that the conversion of uranium oxide ions to solid uranium oxides happens at both the anode and cathode, in contrast to earlier electrochemical techniques. In this process, the copper anode plays an integral role, with UO2 deposited on the cathode and U3O8 on the anode.
The prototype demonstrates the ability to extract UO22+ ions from an NaCl solution at concentrations ranging from 1 to 50 ppm. At a concentration of 20 ppm, and in the presence of Cl– ions—a typical condition in seawater—the extraction rate reaches nearly 100%, significantly outpacing the ~9.1% extraction rate of traditional adsorption methods. This remarkable efficiency is achieved with a cell voltage of only 0.6 V and a current of 50 mA, while maintaining a high selectivity for uranium. Additionally, the process prevents copper contamination in the water, as any dissolved copper from the anode remains on the cathode after testing.
Testing on actual seawater samples from the East and South China Seas showed recovery rates of 100% and 85.3% respectively after ten hours of operation. With potential optimizations for the electrodes suggested by the authors, this extraction method could not only prove effective for recovering uranium from seawater but could also be applied in uranium mining facilities and other contexts.
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