Categorical Exclusion Determination
Office of NEPA Policy and Compliance
July 14, 2015
Estimated Read Time min
The University of Alabama (UA) proposes to understand how metal ions from seawater bind to uranium-selective amidoxime functionalized sorbents by experimentally determining the structures of metal complexes with molecules simulating the possible binding sites and characterizing these binding sites spectroscopically to produce spectroscopic signatures which can be used toidentify particular metal coordination modes on actual seawater sorbents. Based on this new understanding, UA also aims to develop a method for recovering the metals and recycling the sorbent by hydroxylammonium salts as stripping agents which mimic the chemical character of the sorbent.