China's Breakthrough in Uranium Seawater Extraction Boosts Efficiency by 40 Times

Chinese researchers have unveiled a method of extracting uranium from seawater at a fraction of the previous cost and energy use, positioning the country to potentially secure long-term domestic supply.

Scientists from Hunan University have developed an advanced electrochemical system that can extract uranium from seawater more efficiently and economically than any method currently in use.

The innovation, led by Professor Shuangyin Wang and his team, features a novel dual-electrode design using copper at both the positive and negative terminals, allowing uranium ions to be collected simultaneously at both ends.

The system achieved a 100 percent extraction rate from a synthetic seawater solution within 40 minutes — a remarkable leap from earlier physical adsorption methods, which typically extract less than 10 percent.

When tested with natural seawater, the device extracted all uranium from East China Sea samples and up to 85 percent from South China Sea water, reaching 100 percent in the latter case with larger electrodes.

It accomplished these results while consuming over 1,000 times less energy than existing electrochemical systems. The total cost was estimated at US$83 per kilogram of uranium — half the cost of physical adsorption (US$205 per kilogram) and nearly one-fourth that of previous electrochemical approaches (US$360 per kilogram).

The implications for China’s energy security could be substantial.

According to the International Energy Agency, China is building more nuclear power plants than any other country, and is expected to surpass the US and EU in installed nuclear capacity by 2030.

However, much of the uranium needed to fuel this growth is imported. In 2024, China imported 13,000 metric tons of uranium, compared to just 1,700 tonnes mined domestically.

Given the estimated 4.5 billion metric tons of uranium dissolved in the world’s oceans — over 1,000 times the amount in terrestrial reserves — seawater extraction has long been seen as a tantalizing, but technologically elusive solution.

Japan led early efforts in the 1980s and 1990s, extracting 1 kilogram of uranium using large-scale marine trials, a milestone that China is now poised to eclipse. The new electrochemical technique builds on recent momentum in China’s marine uranium research. In March of this year, scientists from Lanzhou University’s Frontiers Science Center for Rare Isotopes published a separate study detailing a breakthrough in uranium-vanadium separation, a major technical challenge due to the similar chemical properties of the two elements in seawater.

The Lanzhou team engineered a metal-organic framework (MOF) material embedded with diphenylethylene molecules that can change pore sizes under ultraviolet light.

This enabled the MOF to selectively attract uranium ions over vanadium, increasing uranium adsorption capacity to 588 milligrams per gram, and improving uranium-vanadium separation efficiency by 40-fold.

Their uranium selectivity factor reached 215 — the highest ever reported in natural seawater.

Both research efforts support China’s national nuclear strategy. In 2019, China National Nuclear partnered with 14 domestic research institutions to establish the Seawater Uranium Extraction Technology Innovation Alliance.

This government-backed initiative set ambitious milestones: match Japan’s kilogram-level extraction record by 2025, build a metric ton-scale demonstration plant by 2035 and reach continuous industrial production by 2050.

The alliance's work is driven by projections from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which forecasts that China’s uranium demand will exceed 40,000 metric tons annually by 2040. Marine extraction, if scaled successfully, could ease long-term supply pressures and reduce geopolitical risk tied to uranium imports.

Of course, despite promising lab results, transitioning to industrial-scale extraction poses engineering and economic hurdles. For example, scaling up the Hunan system would involve increasing the number and size of electrochemical cells and managing flow rates across larger volumes of seawater.

If successful, the innovation could revolutionize the global uranium market. By tapping into the ocean’s near-limitless uranium reserves, China could not only meet its own needs, but also shift the geopolitical dynamics of nuclear energy.

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Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.