SuperCritical Materials and University of Michigan partner on seawater uranium recovery

SuperCritical Materials has partnered with the University of Michigan to develop and test offshore systems for extracting uranium from seawater. The collaboration aims to transition uranium-from-seawater technology toward industrial-scale deployment, addressing a key engineering challenge: the ability to deploy, expose, and repeatedly retrieve adsorbent materials in marine environments.

The oceans are estimated to contain approximately 4.5 billion metric tons of dissolved uranium, a resource that could potentially meet global nuclear power demands for 10,000 to 13,000 years. However, because uranium exists in seawater at extremely low concentrations—averaging about 3.3 micrograms per liter—commercial systems must process massive amounts of material efficiently.

SuperCritical Materials holds an exclusive license to a patented adsorbent technology developed by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The research team, led by Assistant Professor Maha Haji, will focus on the mechanical durability of these materials under stresses such as packing, deployment, and ocean exposure. Testing will utilize the University of Michigan’s Aaron Friedman Marine Hydrodynamics Laboratory to simulate various marine conditions.