Promising porous materials for uranium extraction from seawater

Uranium extraction from seawater is a promising approach for ensuring continued uranium fuel supply to the nuclear power industry. However, extracting uranium by this route is challenging due to the low concentration of uranium, high ionic strength, and marine micro-organisms in seawater. Recently, a range of novel porous adsorbent materials have been developed for uranium extraction from ocean water. These adsorbents rely on specific pore characteristics and functional groups (hydroxyl, carboxyl, amidoxime, phosphate, etc.) to achieve a high affinity and selectivity for uranyl ions (UO₂ ²⁺) relative to other ions. Relying strongly on coordination principles, specific binding sites for uranium are assembled in these porous materials, with cooperative actions of several functional groups often used to achieve strong uranium capture and adsorption selectivity. In addition to traditional adsorbents, adsorption-photocatalytic and adsorption-electrocatalytic materials are also being pursued, which include both specific adsorption sites and photocatalytic or electrocatalytic moieties in their frameworks. These innovative strategies allow the conversion of uranyl ions into harvestable solid products (such as UO₂ or Na₂O(UO₃·H₂O)_x) and result in high extraction efficiencies together with good biofouling resistance. This perspective aims to capture some of the recent breakthroughs in the design of porous materials for selective uranium extraction from seawater.