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Volume 2 Issue 4, April 2017

Volume 2 Issue 4

Seawater source

There are huge amounts of uranium present in the oceans that could be used for nuclear fuel, but recovery methods suffer from low capacity and limited extraction rates. Liu et al. use a pulsed electric field to migrate uranyl ions to a polymer-functionalized electrode, where they deposit on the surface as uranium oxide (shown here). The uptake capacity and kinetics of the extraction are improved relative to conventional physicochemical methods.

See Liu et al. 2, 17007 (2017) and News & Views by Costas Tsouris, article 17022.

Image: Liu et al. Cover design: Samantha Whitham.

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