The research team, from across China, achieved this using a metal-organic framework, work on which won the Nobel Prize for chemistry last year
In 2023, Japan began a decades-long and controversial process — it began releasing treated wastewater from the ruined Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. The water had been filtered to remove most heavy radioactive elements, yet one particular contaminant remained: tritium.
Tritium is a radioactive isotope of hydrogen. When it bonds with oxygen, it forms tritiated water, or HTO. Because tritiated water is chemically almost identical to regular water, it is extremely difficult to separate the two. For many decades, officials in the global nuclear industry have opted to dilute tritiated water, i.e. mixing it in large quantities of regular water.