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.
