Current development trend of uranium recovery from seawater

Tamada, Masao

Zukai, Saisentan Ion Kokan Gijutsu No Subete, p.132 - 135, 2009/03

One ton of seawater contains 3.3 mg uranium. Total weight of the uranium in seawater is 4.5 billion tons which equals 60,000 times of annual uranium consumption in the nuclear plant 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, Japan. At the sea area of Aomori, 1 kg uranium as yellow cake was collected by soaking the adsorbent cloth 12 times in three years experiment. To reduce the cost in this recovery system, braid type adsorbent was developed. By using new adsorbent, 1.5 g-U/(kg-adsorbent) was achieved after 30 days' soaking in Okinawa. The attainable cost is estimated at 25,000 yen/kg-U.