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Chemists have found a new use for the waste product of nuclear power - transforming an unused stockpile into a versatile compound which could be used to create valuable commodity chemicals as well as new energy sources.
Depleted uranium (DU) is a radioactive by-product from the process used to create nuclear energy. Many fear the health risks from DU, as it is either stored in expensive facilities or used to manufacture controversial armour-piercing missiles.
But, in a paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Professor Geoff Cloke, Professor Richard Layfield and Dr Nikolaos Tsoureas, all at the University of Sussex, have revealed that DU could, in fact, be more useful than we might think.
By using a catalyst which contains depleted uranium, the researchers have managed to convert ethylene (an alkene used to make plastic) into ethane (an alkane used to produce a number of other compounds including ethanol).
Their work is a breakthrough that could help reduce the heavy burden of large-scale storage of DU, and lead to the transformation of more complicated alkenes.
Prof Layfield said: "The ability to convert alkenes into alkanes is an important chemical reaction that means we may be able to take simple molecules and upgrade them into valuable commodity chemicals, like hydrogenated oils and petrochemicals which can be used as an energy source.
"The fact that we can use depleted uranium to do this provides proof that we don't need to be afraid of it as it might actually be very useful for us."
Journal Reference:
Nikolaos Tsoureas, Laurent Maron, Alexander F. R. Kilpatrick, Richard A. Layfield, F. Geoffrey N. Cloke. Ethene Activation and Catalytic Hydrogenation by a Low-Valent Uranium Pentalene Complex. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 2019; 142 (1): 89 DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b11929
(Score: 3, Informative) by maxwell demon on Monday January 13 2020, @08:55AM (11 children)
Wrong. It is nuclear fuel if you can cause a chain reaction. If it is merely radioactive, no matter how highly, then it is not usable as nuclear fuel.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @09:51AM (4 children)
If it heats something up it can be used as fuel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @01:31PM (3 children)
True, but it doesn't head high enough ... to produce electricity you need a big temperature delta, if it is too small, it will not be useful... specially if you then have to take care of the radioactive problem
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday January 13 2020, @03:44PM (2 children)
Not at all radiothermal batteries are a wonderful source of long-term power from non-fissile radioactive material. What they're not is a *large* source of such power. There is a trade-off to be made between longevity and power output (more radioactive material produces more power for a shorter time), but anything that produced power on the scale of a power plant would likely be to large, costly, dangerous, and short-lived to be even worth considering. Work great for remote lighthouses, space probes, etc. though.
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday January 13 2020, @09:11PM (1 child)
My understanding is that nuclear waste also has a tendency to be chemically very active.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday January 14 2020, @02:16AM
Probably so - a whole bunch of newly created atoms sitting around in a completely (chemically) unnatural deposit? That's probably about as chemically volatile a state as those atoms will ever be in.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @12:15PM (3 children)
Then why are we putting all this non-fuel to be a fuel in nuclear reactors?? Hmm???
Little knowledge is a dangerous thing. It allows you to get in trouble but you don't know enough to get yourself out of that trouble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @01:49PM (2 children)
i agree.
nuclear waste is man made thru fission or irradiation, for example neutron bombardment.
call "depleted" uranium a form of nuclear waste is wrong in the sense that it waters down the seriousness of nuclear waste.
so called "depleted uranium" is just regular uranium from the mine that has been subjected to a seperation process to remove the more radioactif isotope of uranium which is then use in a regular non heavy water reactor to make lots of radiation, some steam and "once thru" electricity.
obviously it is furthermore a mistake to call "depleted" uranium radioactif waste because it is acctually less radioactif then the original mined ore. this just servers to muddle the water.
and ofc there are rather huge amounts of uranium from the seperation process (on top of regular tailings from mining works) and there are some fears, maybe, that some genius and evil hacker finds a design and assembly that turns golf clubs into a city leveling shovel...?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @03:31PM (1 child)
Uranium ore is depleted of U-235 isotopes. Then we have a game of telephone with sales guys or a few generals and you end up with "this is depleted uranium".... akin of some people calling "high blood pressure" just "high blood", which is a ridicules shortening of the correct expression.
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday January 13 2020, @04:13PM
And spent fuel rods have more U-235 than depleted uranium. Our current PWR reactor designs don't burn the fuel terribly efficiently.
The problem is the spent rods also have a lot of other isotopes in them which make them a pain to deal with, so they end up sitting in pools near reactors.
If we made use of breeder reactors, we could make use of these spent fuel rods and put them to work. Currently it is cheaper and more politically acceptable to just let them sit.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 3, Informative) by Muad'Dave on Monday January 13 2020, @01:41PM (1 child)
You do not need a chain reaction [wikipedia.org] to make use of nuclear fuel. [csmonitor.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 13 2020, @03:52PM
Right, only with specific designs.