Uranium Extraction from Aqueous Sources and Nuclear Waste Treatment
This research community develops chemical methods and materials to capture, separate, and remove uranium and other actinides from water, nuclear fuel cycles, and radioactive waste streams.
The work centers on designing adsorbents and separation agents for uranium recovery from seawater, wastewater, and acidic nuclear solutions. Recurring materials include covalent organic frameworks, metal-organic frameworks, graphene oxide, and functionalized polymers. Key methods involve selective adsorption, electrochemical extraction, and photocatalytic reduction of uranyl ions. The community also addresses the treatment of spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste, with specific focus on removing uranium from nitric acid solutions and environmental remediation following incidents like Fukushima.
The community represents 26.5% of all uranium research and 21.8% of plutonium research, with 23,589 and 7,886 papers respectively. It also contributes 10.2% of thorium research.
There are 66,695 papers in this community, primarily published in the Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Journal of Environmental Radioactivity, and Health Physics.
Recent work focuses on advanced material designs for seawater uranium extraction, including hierarchical architectures and electrocatalysts for fluoride-containing wastewater, as well as the application of metal-organic and covalent organic frameworks for radionuclide treatment.