A relatively unknown science team from Russia is planning to commercialise the results of their long term project to transform nuclear waste materials into other elements using a patented process that involves specific forms of bacteria to do the work!
In short, this is an industrial method for the transformation of chemical elements into other elements and their isotopes - Which will result in a revolution in technology and economics that is unprecedented in recorded human history! Not only can rare elements be created, but dangerous nuclear waste can be deactivated in the process too - win win!
A long line of researchers worked on these discoveries, allowing present researchers to succeed in chemical transmutation. The effects of the revolution are going to be as wide ranging as the effects of the use of electricity.
Representatives of the Russian corporate partnership called Actinedes, consisting of inventors Viktor Kurashov and Tamara Sakhno, and the administrator Vladislav Karabanov, gave a presentation to a Swiss Press Club in 2016, yet few have heard about this possible world changing project.
The Russian patent RU 2563511 awarded to Mrs. Tamara Sahno and Mr. Victor Kurashov - available at the Google Patent repository and at other patent sites: http://russianpatents.com/patent/256/2563511.html.
They state that modern research for the project began in 1990 and their most highly successful experiments occurred in 2013 - while the technology was patented in August 2015.
They use a combination of nuclear waste, specific bacteria and 'variable valency' elements such as valadium, chromium, manganese, cobalt, nickel, zinc and iron to create a sequential process that gradually converts the waste material into different, more desirable elements and isotopes.
Iron is typically used in the process as it is the cheapest to acquire.
The bacteria (Thiobacillus) are iron and sulphur reducing species that are active and resistant to radiation, plus that are adapted to a heavily salted solution.
Nuclear waste is processed by bacteria in the presence of variable valency elements in any closed vessel. The transmutation process begins immediately and continues over a period of weeks. The process is stopped as soon as the target elements are formed.
Which elements have been produced?
The process leads to obtaining polonium, radon, France, radium, actinium, thorium, protactinium, uranium, neptunium, americium, nickel, manganese, bromine, hafnium, ytterbium, mercury, gold, platinum, and their isotopes.
Natural uranium 238 leads to the formation of of thorium, actinium, protactinium, to the formation of valuable isotopes of thorium, actinium 227 and 225, then radium, francium, polonium.
Uranium also leads to the formation of valuable uranium isotopes, such as 235 and 233. The same chain proceeds using natural thorium as a source which is also quite cheap and is not being used presently – such as with natural uranium 238.
The 2nd approach for transmutation from uranium and plutonium, which are contained in obsolete nuclear warheads and nuclear waste forms Curium, Americium, Berkelium and Californium.
A 3rd approach produces Mercury, Gold, Platinum, Iridium, Rhenium, Hafnium and Terbium, which are formed as by-products of polonium decay.
Polonium is very expensive and it is used in satellites and space stations. The traditional process for creating Polonium is complicated and expensive. Russia sells around 9g of Polonium per year to the USA, whereas just through the process of experimentation the researchers were able to obtain polonium in gram quantities. They say they obtained about 30% of the entire Russian industrial output of Polonium just through their experiments. They also created various isotopes of Polonium that have short half lives which are extremely rare and costly normally.
The work has been peer reviewed by a panel of highly qualified, independent experts from other laboratories – analytical chemists and Doctors of science from analytical chemistry and physics.
What are the yields?
200mg of Actinium from 100g of Nuclear waste – which contains 300mg of Uranium 238.
If scaled to industrial volumes – a ton of nuclear waste contains 3kg of natural Uranium 238.
A small laboratory can have the same industrial output as the entire relevant sector of the United States.
Bacteria?
The Bacteria facilitates the moving of electrons and other atomic components, allowing the transformation of one element into another.
Intended Uses
General energy use, as well as in medicine and space exploration are among the wide range of currently envisioned uses.
Nuclear medicine uses radio isotopes and the demand is growing. The market for the technologies is currently hundreds of billions of dollars in size. Using biochemical transmutation will leave all other competitors in the supply of rare isotopes far behind.
A very wide range of potential uses for this technology exists and it opens the door to a new horizon of opportunities in science and creativity.
Press Conference
More Reading
This project appears to still be quite unknown, but the following page contains quite a lot of information about it:
http://www.rexresearch.com/sahnokurashov/sahnokurashov.html
Comments?
What do you think? Are we about to see a crash in the price of rare elements? What would this means for the power balance on Earth?
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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