Potentiality of Alcoholic Purification of Abu-Zaabal Impure Phosphoric Acid for Selective Ion Exchange Recovery of Uranium
Nasr Abdel Aziz Abdel Fattah *
Department of Industrial Experiments Half, Nuclear Materials Authority, P.O.Box 530, El Maadi, Cairo, Egypt
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
A suggested procedure was studied for recovering of uranium selectively from the Abu Zaabal impure phosphoric acid assaying about 46% P2O5 and about 3% iron. This procedure involves the application of an alcoholic precipitation step for most impurities by using isopropyl alcohol and cationic resin where uranium was kept in the acid phase by a prior oxidation step. After distillation of alcohol for recycling, the uranium in the purified phosphoric acid was properly reduced to U+4 and recovered via the Chinese cation exchange resin namely; amino phosphonic (D4O4). Displacing Fe+2 from the resin, washing the resin with aqueous ammonia, eluting the resin with carbonate – bicarbonate solution and precipitating uranium from the elute as UO3-2H2O.
Keywords: Recovering Uranium, Abu Zaabal, alcoholic precipitation, amino phosphonic resin D4O4