Waka waka waka waka

Can Pac-Man Save Us From Radioactive Waste?

Uranium’s heavy atomic weight makes it radioactive but only weakly so. Its greatest hazard to the environment is that it’s a toxic metal. Worse, uranium’s chemistry makes it very difficult to remove from water, causing it to be a very persistent and dangerous pollutant. To make uranium more reactive, a team of U.K. researchers employed what they call a “Pac-Man” strategy–named for the popular 1980s video game. After testing many alternatives, the chemists found an organic molecule that clamps down–like Pac-Man–on one of uranium dioxide’s oxygen atoms. This weakens uranium’s grip on the other oxygen, the researchers report tomorrow in Nature, allowing it to react with one of the new molecule’s silicon atoms.

It’s only a first step, says lead author Polly Arnold of the University of Edinburgh, U.K. The resulting compound is not stable enough to be useful in waste disposal just yet, but the new insights about uranium chemistry could eventually pay off with new technologies, she says. For one, the new molecule might help environmental scientists discover novel ways of extracting uranium dissolved in contaminated water, which constitutes a large portion of uranium pollution.

“Waka waka waka waka.” “No Pack Man, don’t eat that! Its radioactive!” “Waka. Oh damns my stomach, ahhhgghghgs” “Oh shit, run! He mutating!” “Brains, brains.”