An international research team based in China has developed a microscopic material that behaves like a biological predator, actively swimming through water to hunt and capture uranium ions. The light-powered material is a metal-organic framework (MOF) micromotor created by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, capable of moving autonomously through water while capturing uranium ions. The work was accepted on March 24 by the peer-reviewed journal Nano Research. The development carries significant implications for both nuclear fuel supply chains and the remediation of radioactive contamination in aquatic environments.
The approach involves sponge-like particles approximately 30 times smaller than a human hair, measuring just 2 micrometers wide, with the researchers modifying the material’s internal structure to keep it stable inside water for extended periods. The particles are activated with hydrogen peroxide, allowing the micromotors to move at 7 micrometers per second, while exposure to sunlight can nearly double that propulsion speed. In laboratory settings, the material has demonstrated the ability to extract 406 milligrams of uranium per gram. That level of extraction efficiency, at such a microscopic scale, is what makes the research stand out from earlier, more passive approaches to uranium recovery from water bodies.
Uranium remains the critical fuel for nuclear reactors, and despite an estimated 4.5 billion tonnes dissolved in seawater, its extremely low concentration has long made extraction technically complex and economically unviable. As China accelerates the build-out of its nuclear energy capacity, securing a stable uranium supply has become a strategic priority, particularly given its continued reliance on imports. Lead scientist Yongquan Zhou noted that while light-driven micromotors have been studied by researchers elsewhere, their specific application to uranium extraction is relatively unexplored territory. The researchers also observed collective behaviors in these micromotors, including hunting, escape, and swarming with colloidal particles as fuel concentrations changed, which resembled the predator-prey systems seen in biology.
Despite the promise of the research, the team was careful to temper expectations about near-term deployment. The technology is still in its early stages and cannot be deployed at large scales immediately. In specific systems, such as the salt lakes China is currently using for potassium and lithium extraction, salinity levels are too high for the system to run efficiently. However, Zhou sees broader potential beyond uranium alone. Other strategic elements such as rubidium and cesium are also found in these lakes and are currently being discarded as waste, and the micromotors can be adapted to recover these strategic materials as well. For a country with significant salt lake reserves and growing demand for critical minerals, that adaptability may prove just as valuable as the uranium extraction capability itself.
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