Polly Arnold: The 'pac-man' Molecule And Its Potential Link To Nuclear Waste Cleanup

摘要

The wife-and-husband team of Polly Arnold and Jason Love, synthetic chemists at the University of Edinburgh, have designed a molecule that they say can "trick" ura- nium into behaving like lighter metal oxides. The molecule, which resembles the Pac-Man character from the 1980s video game, could someday help environmental scientists discover new ways to remove uranium from contaminated water. Uranium is the heaviest naturally occurring element and makes up about 96 percent of nuclear waste. In the environment, uranium dissolves to make compounds that are formidably stable, highly water soluble, and, consequently, hugely problematic as a persistent groundwater contaminant.