An international research team in China has developed a microscopic “predator-like” material capable of swimming through water and hunting uranium ions, a breakthrough that could open new possibilities for nuclear fuel extraction and cleaning up radioactive pollution.

The light-powered material, a metal-organic framework (MOF) micromotor created by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes, can autonomously move through water while capturing uranium ions. The work was accepted on March 24 by the peer-reviewed journal Nano Research.

Uranium is the fuel that powers nuclear reactors. Although seawater contains an estimated 4.5 billion tonnes of uranium, it has an extremely low concentration, making extraction both technically difficult and prohibitively expensive.

For China, which is rapidly expanding its nuclear power fleet, the challenge has significant strategic implications because the country remains heavily dependent on imported uranium supplies.

“Researchers overseas have studied light-driven micromotors before, but not many have specifically used them for uranium extraction,” Yongquan Zhou, lead scientist of the team, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The researchers engineered sponge-like particles measuring just 2 micrometres across – far thinner than a human hair – and modified their internal chemical structure to keep them stable in water over long periods.