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Worldwide, we know of enough uranium to power today's nuclear reactors¹ for another hundred years according to the nuclear energy agency. But scientists say there may be a thousand times as much uranium lurking² in the oceans, dissolved in seawater.

 

Problem is, how to harvest it? Some attempts have been made with plastic threads that attract the mineral. But better way might be to fish it out with nano fibers⁴ of chitin-the stuff shrimp⁵ and lobster⁶ shells are made of. Rather than start from scratch, researchers spun⁷ threads of chitin from liquified shrimp shells. They chemically modified the nano fibers to make them stick to uranium and dropped them in uranium-spiked water. After three days, they found that the shrimp shell fibers had indeed collected uranium from the solution. They presented that research at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.

 

It is still too early to know how efficient the process is. But researchers say the nano fiber³ huge surface area should allow for more harvesting power than current plastic thread method. And chitin's biodegradable, thus more environmentally friendly, which is after all nuclear power's selling point in a warming world.

 

Thanks for the minute for scientific American sixty seconds science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

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