Purification of Abu-Zenima wet crude yellow cake using alkaline leaching of U(VI)

• Main Authors: Aida L. El-Ansary, Galal M. Abd El-Wahab, Eman E. Bayoumi, El-Said A. Nouh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2018-12-01
• Series: Egyptian Journal of Petroleum
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1110062117301927

Alkaline leaching of U (VI) from the crude yellow cake (Abu-Zenima Project, Sinai, Egypt) was applied using sodium bicarbonate solution at moderate temperature 45 °C. The effect of different leaching parameters such as sodium bicarbonate concentration, solid: liquid mixing ratio (S:L), leaching time and leaching temperature were studied. 91.7% of uranium content has been selectively leached at the optimum conditions. Almost 98% of uranium content in the leach liquor was selectively precipitated as uranium peroxide UO4·2H2O using hydrogen peroxide solution. The final product was of nuclear purity 97.2% where most undesirable impurities were minimized to the acceptable levels of the international standard specification of nuclear purity ASTM C788-03 (2015). Keywords: Uranium, Crude yellow cake, Sodium bicarbonate, Leaching, Hydrogen peroxide, Precipitation