Seawater Uranium Extraction: Progress and Challenges

As a key component of nuclear fuel, uranium resources are crucial to ensuring the construction and sustainable development of our country's nuclear industry. However, conventional terrestrial uranium resources are facing the challenges of relatively poor and low-grade mineable uranium ore. In contrast, seawater uranium resource reserves are nearly a thousand times that of land, and China owns vast sea areas and is rich in seawater resources. Therefore, how to efficiently extract uranium resources from seawater to meet the development needs of nuclear industry in China is an important scientific issue that needs to be explored and solved urgently. The development status of seawater uranium extraction technology is systematically introduced, the research progress of the uranium extraction materials especially the most promising adsorption materials summarized, taking material design and engineering application as the key points to clarify the main challenges and future development prospects of seawater uranium extraction technology.