Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System
Name
Uranium Mining from Seawater.pdf
Size
5.29 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
aceb44baae406286ce59b9334cde3b80
Author(s)
Picard, Mathieu
Baelden, Camille
Wu, You
Chang, Le
Slocum, Alexander H.
Date Issued
November 2014
Journal
Nuclear Technology
Publisher
American Nuclear Society
Citation
Picard, Mathieu, Camille Baelden, You Wu, Le Chang, Alexander H. Slocum. “Extraction of Uranium from Seawater: Design and Testing of a Symbiotic System.” Nuclear Technology (November 1, 2014): 200-217.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Uranium present in low concentration in ocean water has the potential to greatly augment the current fuel reserve for nuclear power generation, but the challenge of extracting it economically remains. Two new designs of seawater uranium extraction systems are proposed in this paper—a stationary system and a continuous system—both of which utilize a braided polymer adsorbent. The stationary system simplifies the recovery procedure, and it is predicted to produce uranium at $326/kg. The continuous system is attached to an offshore wind turbine system to eliminate the need for additional mooring and increase the overall energy-gathering ability of the wind farm system. This system could maximize the adsorbent yield and achieve a production cost of $403/kg of uranium.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.13182/NT13-144
