Abstract
The project is aimed at recovering uranium from scrap material containing useful amounts of Low Enriched Uranium. The common method of recovering uranium is by using acidic or alkaline medium for dissolution, followed by solvent extraction using tributyl phosphate in kerosene. However the normal challenge with solvent extraction is the generation of enormous liquid waste which is slightly radioactive. Therefore in this project we studied the adsorption of uranium on various ion exchange resins in order to use it as an alternative method to solvent extraction. Uranium solution from the scrap materials was used, and different ion exchange resins such as Amberjet 1600 H, PPC100H, Purolite S940 and S950 chelation resin, and Purolite A500 were tested under various conditions for the adsorption of uranium. The strong acid cation resins show no selectivity between the uranium and aluminium species, both species were fully adsorbed irrespective of the pH. The strong base anion resins had good uranium adsorption attaining 100%, they also show a pH effect for the aluminium adsorption. The use of ion exchange resins, especially with anion resins showed promising results and potential for use as an alternative to solvent extraction.
Highlights
Introduction and background The South AfricanFundamental Atomic Research Installation reactor (SAFARI-1) currently uses Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) silicide fuel
The results showed more than 90% adsorptions for both uranium and aluminium, but more aluminium was adsorbed as compared to uranium
Silicon was eliminated since the small traces existing were not adsorbed for all the resins tested and the majority precipitated after dissolution and the precipitate was separated by centrifugation
Summary
Introduction and background The South AfricanFundamental Atomic Research Installation reactor (SAFARI-1) currently uses Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) silicide fuel. During the fabrication process of fuel for nuclear research reactors, scrap material is generated. This scrap material contains un-irradiated uranium and silicon as major elements, the other elements present are traces of Mg, Fe and Mn which originate from the aluminium alloy used as cladding material. Since the introduction of LEU silicide fuel for research reactors, investigations regarding dissolution and recovery have been ongoing in order to recover the valuable uranium. The common acidic routes use nitric acid, especially for the dissolution of LEU silicide fuel plates, especially those with aluminium cladding in high concentrations (3 to 6 M) [4]. While in an alkaline medium, the dissolution of the uranium silicide fuel plate scrap material is normally conducted using a two-step process.
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