An international team in China engineered a light-powered, predator-like material—a metal-organic framework micromotor. This breakthrough could revolutionize nuclear fuel extraction and help clean up radioactive pollution in the ocean.

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....