Extraction of uranium from sea water using biological origin adsorbents

Waste microbial biomass has been shown to be a good adsorbent for uranium. A small scale pilot plant was operated at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in collaboration with the Department of Nuclear Engineering of MIT in order to assess the potential use of the two selected types of microbial biomass to sequester uranium from sea water effectively. The experimental results suggest that factors such as the presence of carbonates in the sea water, suppress substantially the uranium adsorptive uptake capacity of the biomass. The selectivity of the biomass for uranium, is not as good as that of other synthetic inorganic or organic adsorbents as, for example, hydrous titanium oxide.