Investigations onto the Recovery of Uranium and Rare Earth Elements from High Sulfate Concentrations Leach Liquor of Abu Hamata Sandy claystone ore material via Anion-Exchange Resin process

Abstract

Excess of free sulfate anions in a sulfate leach solution became an offending object for uranium recovery by using Amberlite IRA400 anion exchange resin. This is because, not only uranium U loading efficiency is reduced significantly, but also the selectivity for the uranyl sulfate complex, [UO2(SO4)3]4 - over ferric sulfate complex, [FeO (SO4)]-, is reduced.The present study concerned with the feasibility of using Amberlite IRA400 anion exchange resin for effective recovery of uranium from highly concentrated sulfate solution of Abu Hamata sandy claystone ore sample. The latter solution was found assaying 0.45 g/L and 26 g/L of U and SO4 --, respectively, together with 0.32 g/L, 0.05 g/ L, 0.008 g/L and 2.3 g/L of rare earth elements, (REEs), V, B as well as Cl-, respectively. Such solution was treated with solid CaCO3 at different pH values ranged from 1 upto 3 for precipitating the excess free sulfate. The obtained results indicate that, U extraction efficiency has been highly improved from 48.4% up to 94.4% at pH 1.8.