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New Material Can Soak Up Uranium From Seawater (acs.org)
A new adsorbent material "soaks up uranium from seawater, leaving interfering ions behind," reports the ACS's Chemical & Engineering News, in an article shared by webofslime:
The world's oceans contain some 4 billion metric tons of dissolved uranium. That's roughly 1,000 times as much as all known terrestrial sources combined, and enough to fuel the global nuclear power industry for centuries. But the oceans are so vast, and uranium's concentration in seawater is so low -- roughly 3 ppb -- that extracting it remains a formidable challenge... Researchers have been looking for ways to extract uranium from seawater for more than 50 years...
Nearly 20 years ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) confirmed that amidoxime-functionalized polymers could soak up uranium reliably even under harsh marine conditions. But that type of adsorbent has not been implemented on a large scale because it has a higher affinity for vanadium than uranium. Separating the two ions raises production costs. Alexander S. Ivanov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, together with colleagues there and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other institutions, may have come up with a solution. Using computational methods, the team identified a highly selective triazine chelator known as H2BHT that resembles iron-sequestering compounds found in bacteria and fungi.... H2BHT exhibits little attraction for vanadium but has roughly the same affinity for uranyl ions as amidoxime-based adsorbents do.
Nearly 20 years ago, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) confirmed that amidoxime-functionalized polymers could soak up uranium reliably even under harsh marine conditions. But that type of adsorbent has not been implemented on a large scale because it has a higher affinity for vanadium than uranium. Separating the two ions raises production costs. Alexander S. Ivanov of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, together with colleagues there and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other institutions, may have come up with a solution. Using computational methods, the team identified a highly selective triazine chelator known as H2BHT that resembles iron-sequestering compounds found in bacteria and fungi.... H2BHT exhibits little attraction for vanadium but has roughly the same affinity for uranyl ions as amidoxime-based adsorbents do.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm#chap11 "Professor," said Captain Nemo, "my electricity is not everybody's. You know what sea-water is composed of. In a thousand grammes are found 96 1/2 per cent. of water, and about 2 2/3 per cent. of chloride of sodium; then, in a smaller quantity, chlorides of magnesium and of potassium, bromide of magnesium, sulphate of magnesia, sulphate and carbonate of lime. You see, then, that chloride of sodium forms a large part of it. So it is this sodium that I extract from the sea-water, and of which I compose my ingredients. I owe all to the ocean; it produces electricity, and electricity gives heat, light, motion, and, in a word, life to the Nautilus."
Canada has been using natural uranium as fuel for decades, and sold their designs to India, China, and perhaps other nations, from which local variants have been built. This is not new technology and not rare either.
CANDU reactors have a positive void coefficient meaning if they start to boil off their water (just bubbles form, not fill boil), they overheat quickly. This is very dangerous. One of the few sensible US nuclear regulations is not allowing reactors with positive void coefficients. It is quite nice that they can use raw ore but at the cost of having to use heavy water which is really just shifting the problem of enrichment, not fixing it. However, the Canadians usually have more sensible nuclear regulations and hopefully will start licensing MSRs soon.
Now figure it out how to enrich it at the same time and watch as the world destroys itself building nukes from ocean water.
By "nukes" I assume you mean nuclear weapons. You do realize what many wars have been fought over, do you not? Resources. People fight over water, fuel, food, and so on. Access to cheap nuclear fission power by extracting uranium from seawater could mean an end to scarcity. Well, there will always be scarcity of something, just not a scarcity of energy. Energy that can be used to produce water, food, shelter, and clothing. That's not saying there won't be wars, people fight for other reasons. Many such people fight because their god tells them to convert or kill. If they were more concerned about live and let live then they'd be far better off and not feel such jealousy of other people having greater wealth, freedom, and generally a better standard of living.
Nuclear energy has as much to do with nuclear weapons as gasoline cars have with napalm. When you gas up your car do you think about how many people could be burned to ash if we used that fuel to bomb cities instead of use it to power the transportation sector of the world? You don't? Maybe that's because peaceful energy is far more valuable than weapons to deny other people of their wealth, property, and lives.
Well said and spot on...
"Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."