1. Uranium Recovery in Seawater Lawrence L. Tavlarides, Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244

2. New Adsorbent Development Current capacity appears to be approaching values that appear promising for economic potential. New adsorbents and issues for process definition should continued to be pursued. 1. Current adsorbent examples: Amidoxime (Kabay et al, 1994, Sodaye et al., 2009) Calixarenes (Shinkai et al., 1987) Macrocyclic hexacarboxylic acid (Tabushi et al., 1980) Macrocyclic hexaketone (Tabushi et al., 1979) Bentonite (Olguin et al., 1997) Quinoline-8-ol (Hirata et al., 2001) 4-(2-thiazolylazo)resorcinol (Lee et al., 1997)

3. Speciation and Example of Amidoxime Chemistry Speciation diagram of U(VI)O 2 2+ (Choppin, 2006) Uranium complexes with amidoxime (Katragadda et al., 1997)

4. New Adsorbent Development 2. Research: Following issues should be addressed. Proposed adsorbent structure or functionality Define chemistry and mechanism of adsorption Adsorbing species identification Fundamental adsorption studies: Adsorption equilibrium (capacity, distribution coefficient), stability (adsorption cycles), stripping efficiency Competing metal ions being adsorbed Nature of adsorbents Polymer fibers, composite fiber materials, non woven fabric (braid adsorbent), magnetic particles Uranium separation from stripped metal ion solution

5. New Direction in Seawater Technologies Key Issues: to consider or address 1. Use of tidal basin, ocean current, and wave motion 2. Potential sea water location 3. Process concepts: current examples Fabric adsorbent submerged system adsorbent stack Towing in seawater Braid adsorbents on ocean floor Pumping fixed bed system Adsorbent loop concept Hollow fibers in stacked beds Circulation of adsorbent sheets through sea water Other concepts

6. New Direction in Seawater Technologies A submerged system of adsorption cages for uranium recovery from seawater (Uranium recovery from seawater, Seko et al., 2003)

7. New Direction in Seawater Technologies Stacks of uranium specific nonwoven fabric in adsorption cages (Uranium recovery from seawater, Seko et al., 2003)

8. New Direction in Seawater Technologies Metal extraction from sea water (US Patent 4,293,527, 1981)

9. New Direction in Seawater Technologies 4. Overall process economic analysis Process concept with required energy efficiency Adsorbent preparation costs Scale of operation Location of operation (tidal basin, water depth, water movement, etc) Other operational parameters Stripping costs and chemicals Separation of uranium from stripped multi component metal solution Cycles assumed for cost analysis 5. Pilot Studies Execute pilot studies to demonstrate and evaluate concept

10. Collaborative Efforts and Teams Individual scientist or collaborative efforts for sorbent development (government laboratories, academic, industry) Teams for pilot scale evaluation (academic, DOE, industry) Teams for process economic studies (government laboratories, academic, industry)