The nuclear power sector may soon have the tools to source uranium from the marine environment to augment the finite fuel supplies that can be exploited on land. Recognizing that the uranium reserves in seawater are nearly 1,000 times larger than terrestrial uranium reserves, researchers from China’s Northeast Normal University fashioned an electrochemically active and flexible carbon fiber cloth to tap this offshore resource.

Treatment with hydroxylamine hydrochloride adds amidoxime groups to the cloth, which serve to efficiently capture uranyl ions. When connected to a graphite anode, the coated cloth performs as a cathode and turns bright yellow as the uranium ions are collected.

[See also: Fishing for uranium resources]

Laboratory tests with seawater collected from the Bohai Sea documented the extraction of 12.6 mg of uranium/g of water over 24 days; the removal capacity of pure carbon cloth was only 3.7 mg. The electrochemical approach described in ACS Central Science showed higher uptake and faster kinetics in comparison to physicochemical adsorption.