All nations are dependent on sources of energy for everything from industrial output to warmth and cooking. This has led to the current situation of the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels and its corollary: the emission of 35 billion tons of CO<sub>2</sub> into the atmosphere in 2015 alone. Nuclear energy is the only form of energy that is ready now to stem the use of fossil fuels. Uranium is a critical resource for nuclear energy and a new fiber is described to recover uranium in an environmentally compatible manner from the oceans in which there is dissolved 4.5 billion tons but at the extremely low level of 3.3 parts per billion. A bifunctional polyacrylonitrile fiber will be described that has been modified with amidoxime and an auxiliary ligand that affects the internal structure. The loadings to be reported from actual seawater by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (Marine Sciences Laboratory) are among the highest reported.

Bifunctional amine/amidoxime polyacrylonitrile fibers for the separation of uranium from seawater

254th National Meeting (2017)

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