Engineered Sorbents for Selective Uranium Sequestration from Seawater

The sustainable energy supply to the global community remains a great challenge due to the mounting incessant energy demand and environmental concerns associated with fossil fuel-based energy. As per the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), nuclear power will be the only reliable sustainable energy source in the future, and there will be a high demand for uranium (U). Therefore, the exploitation of U from seawater is essential to supply nuclear energy for thousands of years globally. Herein, we discuss some key developments on the design and application of potential sorbents for effective uranium extraction from seawater (UES) under different experimental conditions. Specifically, we focus on the synthesis, characterization, and application of a) organic sorbents (metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), covalent organic frameworks (COFs), membranes, and hydrogels) and b) inorganic substrate (graphene and silica) based composite sorbents. Later, we discuss selected studies encompassing the mechanistic understating of efficient UES using potential sorbents through various analytical and theoretical/computational approaches. Finally, we present future challenges that need to be addressed for the design of compatible sorbents with exceptional properties for the effective UES. We believe that this paper can expand our understanding of the design and application of suitable sorbents for selective UES.