ADAPTATION OF ANION EXCHANGE PROCESS TO DECONTAMINATE MONAZITE RARE EARTH GROUP FROM ITS URANIUM CONTENT

K.A.Rabie, Y.K.AbdElMoneam, Abd El-Fatah. A. I, M. Demerdash, A.R.Salem

Abstract: This paper adapt a process for uranium separation as a radioactive element from the sulfuric liquor, generated after several chemical treatment process for Egyptian black sand monazite mineral, applying ion exchange technique. The influence of several variables such as the resin bed thickness, contact time between phases, concentration of the started solution and its pH were investigated. After the mineral thorium content separation, the results indicated the possibility of separation efficiency of uranium from sulfuric acid media containing a mixture of both uranium and rare earth group by anionic exchange resin. The elution of uranium was carried out with a sodium chloride solution. The behavior of uranyl sulphate anion and trivalent rare earth cations present in the started leach liquor towards anion exchange resin has been studied using Amberlite IRA 402 Cl resin. More than 99% of the rare earth elements passed in the eluate phase of the liquor when the initial concentration of sulfuric acid was between 4 and 6 M. Under these conditions uranyl sulphate anion were readily adsorbed by Amberlite IRA 402 Cl resin and were quantitatively eluted from the column using 2M sodium chloride solution .To fulfill the previous results , pH of starting pregnant solutions was adjusted to1.75 while the pH of the optimum uranium elution sodium chloride solution was 7 for uranium separation by elution . and the most effective flow rate was 1ml /min while the most probable starting solution concentration was 300 ppm and the dimension of fixed bed radius was 1.2 cm and 14 cm height. Under the previous conditions rare earth concentrate was rarely decontaminated with percent recovery and purity (from U) more than 99%. Uranium recovery and purity were more than 99% and 95% respectively

Keywords: Monazite treatment, Rare earth elements, Uranium separation, Ion exchange resin

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2014.0306070