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SuperCritical Materials licenses technology for uranium seawater extraction
Last week, Austin, Texas–based nuclear fuel start-up SuperCritical Materials announced that it has secured a license from the Department of Energy for a patented uranium and critical materials adsorbent manufacturing process originally developed by a team led by Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
SuperCritical aims to use this license to extract uranium from seawater at an industrial scale in the United States and abroad.
Takashi Kodama, Hiroshi Kinuhata, Mikio Kumagai, Kazunori Suzuki, Shin-Itiro Hayashi, Shingo Matsuoka
Nuclear Technology | Volume 210 | Number 6 | June 2024 | Pages 958-984
Research Article | doi.org/10.1080/00295450.2023.2273550
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
Using the amount, composition, and decay power density of high-level liquid waste in a storage tank, the temperature change of the waste up to 600°C and the corresponding vapor and gas release rates of H2O, HNO3, NO2, NO, and O2 as a function of time after the loss of cooling function were obtained by the following method. The heat balance equations in and around the tank were derived, and the solution of the waste temperature change was numerically obtained using the vaporization rates of H2O and HNO3 and the generation rate of NOx, which were both obtained from the experiments using the simulated liquid waste. Utilizing the temperature versus time curve obtained from the equation, the release rates of the components described above were obtained as a function of time. This information on the progress of the accident can be used to study the Leak Path Factor of radioactive materials, especially of volatilized Ru, and further, it becomes basic information when considering accident management and suppressing the impact of a disaster.