Acrylic yarn helps extract uranium from seawater

Researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State have developed a new method for extracting uranium from the ocean. It consists in taking acrylic yarn, impregnating it with a special adsorbent and lowering it into the ocean for a while. After a certain time, the polymer coated yarn can be extracted with oxide U308. This compound produces fuel for nuclear reactors.

According to this scheme, uranium mining with the help of yarn is not such a difficult task. The problem arose only with the search for an adsorbent suitable for this purpose, but they also investigated it.

As for uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association , it is 500 times more in the ocean than gold in the earth's crust. The difficulty is in obtaining this element, since the concentration of uranium-containing ions is only 3 mg per cubic meter of seawater.

If you learn to do this, then, given the size of the oceans, 4.5 billion tons of uranium will be available to mankind in the course of large-scale development of “liquid deposits”. This amount is enough for 6.5 thousand years, provided that the current level of electricity consumption is maintained.

Last week, researchers explained in more detail about the adsorbent discovered by them, which is an indispensable condition for the extraction of uranium from the ocean. They have become an organic polymer, which is relatively cheap, plus it has the ability to bind uranyl ions.

A team of specialists conducted an experiment in which acrylic yarn, previously soaked in polymer, was dipped into seawater with an imitation of a weak current. In one month, it was possible to collect 5 grams of nitrous oxide U308. It is important that the organic polymer was safe for the inhabitants of the ocean, and this means that the mining of uranium will not affect the state of the environment. In addition, another group of scientists argues that reducing the concentration of uranium in the oceans will not have a negative impact on the ecosystem.

As a yarn, you can use any acrylic fabric or just second-hand clothing. Fabric or yarn can be used many times, but it is required to separate uranium from polymer after each “dive network”. After this process can be repeated.