I was merely using that idea as part of my hypothetical question. Plus, selective "adsorption" sounds more fun.:P
A little extra Vitamin C and a black light will get you started.
Or see Sionnsar about how to squeeze a cat to get the effect you want.
Sounds like some fun party tricks!
The adsorption is done by special cloth designed to attract those ions we are interested in, such as molybdenum, vanadium, and uranium.
It's the opposite of washing clothes. Essentially, we are getting the cloth dirty with material we wish to collect.
Purifying the uranium is as difficult and tedious for us as it is for anyone else. I won't go into specifics, because just now we are trying to restrict the ease of access to this technology to those on Earth who happen to be moderately sane.
Suffice it to say that we needed, and used, all the time we were floating in the ocean to good effect. All of our shuttles were fully fueled, and we have sufficient reserves for our stationary reactors and for refueling the shuttles.
The other materials came in handy as well. You can never have too many ways of dealing with high-temperature plasmas and such.
Party tricks? I have no idea what you're talking about ...