Recovery of uranium from seawater

Tamada, Masao

Tokoton Yasashii Ion Kokan No Hon, p.130 - 131, 2013/06

One ton of seawater contains 3.3 mg uranium. Total weight of the uranium in seawater is 4.5 billion tons which equals 1,000 times of uranium in available uranium ore all over the world. The uranium adsorbent with high strength has been successfully synthesized by radiation-induced graft polymerization. This uranium adsorbent was evaluated in the sea areas of Aomori and Okinawa in Japan. At the sea area of Aomori, 1kg uranium as yellow cake was collected by ocean experiment. To reduce the recovery cost, a braid type adsorbent was developed. This new adsorbent realized 1.5g-U/(kg-adsorbent) in Okinawa. The practical technology of uranium recovery from seawater is expected since there is no big difference in the uranium costs from seawater and mine.