/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.15446282]

How viable is this?

https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/CNNC-launches-test-platform-to-extract-uranium-fro

[Anonymous No.15446345]

it's Chinese so the Americans will probably cope about it according to this general scheme:
first about how it won't ever work, then about how it works but will break soon, it works well but is probably going to be useless, works well and is very useful but wouldn't work in the US because of some meme they saw, and finally admit yes it works well, is tremendously useful, should have been done decades ago but it's too late now since they're too far behind China anyway so why bother

[Anonymous No.15446430]

>>15446282
Nah. The American """cope""" is simply that it won't work because Chinese """scientists""" just lie about their work and progress.

[Anonymous No.15446450]

>>15446282
In terms of nuclear china is outperforming the us in every conceivable way

[Anonymous No.15446457]

>>15446345
>>15446430
Is there a reason why you write this with no provocation? Why can't you just post in good faith?

[Anonymous No.15446524]

>>15446282
The idea of extracting ions of sea water is old. The problem is energy and maybe pollution.
If you don't do it you can't know for sure if it's viable.

At least it's far less polemic than seabed mining.

[Anonymous No.15446558]

>>15446282
Nuclear isn't really commercially viable so adding a meme form of extracting uranium doesn't really help. Chances are it's just a strategic experiment for diversifying their nuclear sources.

[Anonymous No.15446668]

>>15446345
US has been working on seawater uranium extraction too:
https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514
India also. Probably others, I just did a quick search.

[Anonymous No.15446697]

>>15446524
>maybe pollution
If it means poisoning the air, land or waters then the Chinese will do it.
Protip. Go to google earth satellite image and have a close look around China. If the gigantic tracts of erosion all over the country doesn't impress you then take refuge in the knowledge that nearly every river and lake is contaminated with toxins and eutrophication. Then check out the coastal areas for the visible signs of shit being dumped out to sea. Also the constant smudges of smoke coming from the cities are worth a view. Lovely people. Followed up closely by India.
But dont worry, I am sure people like will make a heartfelt impassioned plea to them to stop polluting the world. But hey, if westerners are drinking out of paper straws and not using plastic shopping bags that's got to do something to offset the impact of 2000 million Chinese and Indians burning, burying and dumping their shit into the oceans, right? Things are getting better! And dont forget to put out your kerb side recycling! :)

[Anonymous No.15446721]

>>15446282
I've read about this. the articles I've read said this works, even though it's not terribly efficient, so why wouldn't it be viable?
IIRC (don't count on my memory), they use some materials that, for whatever reason, catch uranium and other metals

here's one paper:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.iecr.0c01573
>The capture and recovery of uranium from the ocean have been under investigation for some time, with many recent studies focused on amidoxime-based adsorbents. These adsorbents, while able to achieve high uranium recovery capacities, are, nevertheless, expensive to produce and adsorb a significant amount of hard-to-remove vanadium. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the adsorption performance of amidoxime-based polymer braids synthesized from acrylic fibers that are designed to significantly cut polymer synthesis and conditioning costs.

[Anonymous No.15446759]

>>15446282
It has been done like 10 years ago at least. Its like 20 times more expensive than uranium from Niger so a cool backup in case of emergency. Its rational to mandate some small percentage of uranium supply to come from this source (like 1% of supply) so it wont affect the overall costs much while creating a small industry seed and knowledge base that can be ramped up if niger supplies were to dwindle.
Same reason the US makes hundreds of abrams tanks each year and just buries them. Its needed to keep the factories alive.

[Anonymous No.15446766]

It’s neat tech but kinda useless so long as we have available mining resources.

[Anonymous No.15446802]

>>15446282
Here's what we know. In the ocean there are lots of elements.

>230 billion tonnes of Lithium
>4 billion tonnes of Uranium
>100 million tonnes of Gold

Both Lithium and Uranium are being extracted from the oceans. Gold is not economically viable. Of the 3, Uranium is the one that gives the most value per gram.

[Anonymous No.15447339]

>>15446558
>Nuclear isn't really commercially viable
Your brain on propaganda

[Strange Love No.15447982]

>>15446282

The extraction procedure by ion exchange resins works. Viable? Yes. Feasible? Gotta calculate concentration of uranium and thus required sea water throughput against the energy costs for the pumps running the seawater through the resin beds. If this requires more energy than the uranium is worth then it is non-feasible. However, we also gotta appreciate "headaches" here and these will be primarily corrosion of the equipment (can be dealt with by using the right materials, could be expensive however) and marine biolfouling (very hard to control, could ruin and clog your resin beds, piping, etc.).