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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 21 2017, @11:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the wave-of-interest dept.

Stanford researchers have improved a technique for drawing out uranium from seawater:

Trace amounts of uranium exist in seawater, but efforts to extract that critical ingredient for nuclear power have produced insufficient quantities to make it a viable source for those countries that lack uranium mines. A practical method for extracting that uranium, which produces higher quantities in less time, could help make nuclear power a viable part of the quest for a carbon-free energy future. "Concentrations are tiny, on the order of a single grain of salt dissolved in a liter of water," said Yi Cui, a materials scientist and co-author of a paper in Nature Energy. "But the oceans are so vast that if we can extract these trace amounts cost effectively, the supply would be endless."

[...] Scientists have long known that uranium dissolved in seawater combines chemically with oxygen to form uranyl ions with a positive charge. Extracting these uranyl ions involves dipping plastic fibers containing a compound called amidoxime into seawater. The uranyl ions essentially stick to the amidoxime. When the strands become saturated, the plastic is chemically treated to free the uranyl, which then has to be refined for use in reactors just like ore from a mine.

How practical this approach is depends on three main variables: how much uranyl sticks to the fibers; how quickly ions can be captured; and how many times the fibers can be reused. In the recent work, the Stanford researchers improved on all three variables: capacity, rate and reuse. Their key advance was to create a conductive hybrid fiber incorporating carbon and amidoxime. By sending pulses of electricity down the fiber, they altered the properties of the hybrid fiber so that more uranyl ions could be collected.

A half-wave rectified alternating current electrochemical method for uranium extraction from seawater (DOI: 10.1038/nenergy.2017.7) (DX)


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  • (Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:02PM

    by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:02PM (#469735)

    There is enough Uranium already mined to last another 100+ years, all we need to do is is reprocess the "waste" that the current nuke plants have been dumping out for the last ~6 decades.

    In that time we can get Thorium based power plants operational and on-line without ever having to mine another ounce of Uranium.
     

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @04:48PM (#469758)

    supposedly thorium and uranium comes from mined ready-formed pure bricks (as in gold-bar-brick).
    my attention span in mineralogy and geology class was comparable to the life span of a fruit fly (wat? two days?) but i think that mining thorium will also yield uranium and other stuff (in some classes .. errr ... cases).
    it's all radioactive stuff and most probably it will be mined by carbon-based robots.
    with uranium, the planet nearly got rid of it in time (decay); thorium is unfortunately taking longer and evolution of the pesky ape maybe went to fast for the planet and so we are in the situation were still enough of it is around to have the apes return earth to the regular fold of non-life bearing planets : P

  • (Score: 2) by sgleysti on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:03PM

    by sgleysti (56) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 21 2017, @05:03PM (#469765)

    In 60 years we may have practical fusion power plants. I just saw this lecture about the ARC (Affordable Robust Compact) reactor design and was very encouraged.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkpqA8yG9T4 [youtube.com]

    The main takeaway from the lecture is that confinement in a tokamak scales linearly with the radius of the edible part of the "donut" and to the fourth power of the magnetic field strength. At the same time, cost scales with the cube of that radius. Recent commercially-available superconducting wires are able to remain superconducting at much higher field strengths than previous wires. A group at MIT has used these new wires as the basis for the ARC reactor design and is doing basic engineering research on some of the fundamental components.

    The higher field strength allowed them to design a much smaller, and therefore much less costly reactor. It also allowed them to simplify the most complex part of the design, the neutron capture blanket and to make the parts that wear out modular and replaceable. Higher fields also improve plasma stability.

    This is the first time I was optimistic that I might see viable fusion power in my lifetime.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:20PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 21 2017, @09:20PM (#469886)

      good good.
      i heard you, sir
      but sir: fusion needs to be simple.
      humans create it. humans break it. not: NATIONS CREATE IT - NATIONS BREAK IT.

      with fission, it is "NATION CREATE IT - n.korea" "NATION DESTROYS IT"

      with fusion, it's LPG but for .. forever.

      you can see why it is NOT desirable?