Spin-out 525 Solutions receives $1.5m to extract uranium from the ocean.
525 Solutions, a spin-out from Alabama University, has received a grant worth $1.5m from the US Department of Energy. 525 is hoping to solve the problem of dwindling terrestrial uranium resources.
Using shrimps and other shellfish, the company is developing an environmentally friendly material based on chitin, naturally occurring in these animals. The material is used to create an absorbent, biodegradable mat, which attract uranium when submerged. The material works like a magnet, which attracts metal and holds it in place.
The mats are created with a technique called electrospinning. The material is put into the machine, which applies 30,000 volts and spins the fibers for several hours in a water bath. Although the individual fibers are actually thinner than a single strand on a spider’s web, when woven together through electrospinning they form a solid sheet.
The technology is based on research conducted at Alabama by Robin Rogers, director of the university’s Centre for Green Manufacturing and chair of chemistry. Rogers’s research solved the problem of extracting chitin from shells when he discovered a new class of solvents that enabled the process.
Robin Rogers, owner and founder of 525 Solutions, said: “The oceans are estimated to contain more than a thousand times the amount of uranium found in total in any known land deposit. Fortunately, the concentration of uranium in the ocean is very, very low, but the volume of the oceans is, of course, very, very high. Assuming we could recover only half of this resource, this much uranium could support 6,500 years of nuclear capacity.”
