title: Protein Hydrogel Microbeads for Selective Uranium Mining from Seawater.
abstract: Practical methods for oceanic uranium extraction have yet to be developed in order to tap into the vast uranium reserve in the ocean as an alternative energy. Here we present a protein hydrogel system containing a network of recently engineered super uranyl binding proteins (SUPs) that is assembled through thiol-maleimide click chemistry under mild conditions. Monodisperse SUP hydrogel microbeads fabricated by a microfluidic device further enable uranyl (UO22+) enrichment from natural seawater with great efficiency (enrichment index, K = 2.5 × 103) and selectivity. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using protein hydrogels to extract uranium from the ocean.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Songzi
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kou
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Zhongguang
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Fei
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3065-7471
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Sun
keywords: green mining; heavy metal; microfluidics; protein material; soft matter