Spontaneous Droplet Uranium Extraction from Salt Lake Water Natural Falling

Abstract Uranium as the nuclear energy fuel is critical for clean and efficient power generation, and its limited terrestrial reserves and environmentally harmful mining practices necessitate the development of alternative resources and sustainable uranium extraction technologies. In this study, we introduce an innovative droplet uranium extraction (DUE) approach, in which naturally falling salt lake water interacts with a three-layer Al-FEP-CTS@CF film, driving an in-situ electrochemical process for spontaneous uranium extraction without external power consumption. The superhydrophobic fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP) layer induces solid-liquid interfacial interactions, converting falling water kinetic energy into electricity. At the same time, the selective reduction of uranium ions takes place at chitosan (CTS) functionalized adsorption sites on carbon felt (CF), precipitating out uranium peroxide hydrate. The DUE method achieves a high uranium extraction efficiency of 58% for the first droplet of 1000 mg/L uranium aqueous solution and maintains efficiency above 55% for subsequent droplets. The DUE method has an extraction capacity of 1250.6 mg/g, surpassing conventional adsorption methods by ~ 26 times. Field experiments in real salt lake environment with high-salinity condition validate the scalability and adaptability of DUE, successfully extracting final products of MgU 2 O 7 and Na 2 U 7 O 22 from brine water flows. This zero-consumption technology provides a scalable, economical, and environmentally sustainable way for uranium resource exploitation, and can conveniently extend to other aqueous mineral extraction. One-Sentence Summary : We introduce a zero-consumption and scalable Droplet Uranium Extraction (DUE) method that uses naturally falling salt lake water to drive in-situ electrochemical process for spontaneous uranium extraction, successfully validated in high-salinity salt lake environments with the final products of MgU 2 O 7 and Na 2 U 7 O 22 from brine flows.