EXTRACTION OF URANIUM AND LANTHANIDES FROM EGYPTIAN PHOSPHATE BY USING SYNTHETIC ORGANIC MATERIALS
Amira Reda Hassan Mowafy;
Abstract
The energy crisis is actually considered a worldwide problem due to increasing consumption of the fossil fuel resources. In the meantime, increasing uranium exhaustion of the classical conventional uranium ores in the last century would recently re-orient research attention towards the non-conventional uranium resources. The latter include mainly the phosphate ores, shales and lignite in which the uranium content is usually quite low.
Phosphate ores are mainly used (80%) in fertilizer production through different processes of prior production of phosphoric acid via acidulation procedures (wet process phosphoric acid: WPPA); a matter which represents the main industry of phosphate ores.
Phosphate rock is the major source of phosphorus in nature where the world resources of phosphate ores are estimated to be about 18000 million tons. It is worthy to mention herein that, the estimated uranium resource from Egyptian phosphates amount to at least 60,000 t U and other lanthanides in amount of 100 times higher than uranium, depending on the source of rock phosphate used which are being overlooked. It is actually considered as an important alternate or secondary source of uranium and lanthanides. So, there is an urgent need to re-balance the uranium and lanthanides strategy in Egypt to include a significant and proportionate focus on uranium and lanthanides extraction from phosphates.
The present work has thus been designed to investigate the potentiality of applying commercial cetrimide for the recovery of uranium from phosphoric acid originally obtained from El-Sebaya phosphate ore which produced from Abu Zaabal Fertilizers and Chemicals Co. Also , the use of synthesized the salicyaldehyde azine for the recovery of Lns from Abu Tartur phosphate rock sample is another concern of this thesis. For this purpose, several series of extraction and stripping experiments have been applied using a prepared phosphoric acid solution WPPA (30% P2O5) to optimize the different significant factors.
This work is composed of four main chapters; each of which can be summarized as following :
The first chapter includes; introduction about phosphate rocks and its occurrence in Egypt.
The second chapter concerns with a full literature survey reported for the extractive metallurgical processes of phosphate ore materials. Also, the recovery of uranium and lanthanides reviewed. The main points that have been discussed through this chapter can be summarized as following:
The geology of phosphate rock.
Production of phosphoric acid by (thermal and wet processes).
Reviewing of different techniques concerning the separation of uranium from phosphoric acid such as solvent extraction, ion exchange, liquid membrane and froth flotation.
Reviewing of different techniques concerning the separation of lanthanides from phosphoric acid including; H2SO4 , HNO3 and from HCl leaching processes.
The third chapter deals with the utilized chemicals , reagents, materials, and instruments .The experimental work which have been made in this thesis could be summarized as following:
Preparation of working solutions includes;wet-process phosphoric acid, preparation of standard U(VI) solution and the standard Ʃ lns .
salicyaldehyde azine preparation procedure: salicyaldehyde azine was prepared by dissolving hydrazine hydrate (0.05 mol) in 95% ethanol (25 mL) and added slowly with constant stirring to the aldehyde solution. The reaction was usually exothermic and was driven to completion by refluxing the reaction mixture for about 2h. cooling to room temperature led to the deposition of yellow crystals which were filtered off under suction and re-crystallized from ethanol/water (1:1) mixture and dried under vacuum. Compound structure was characterized by means of 1H NMR, ESI–MS, melting point instrument and X-ray diffraction techniques.
Analysis of major components together with U &Lns content of Abu Tarture ore material sample and phosphoric acid of Abu Zabal Co. were also determined.
Phosphate ores are mainly used (80%) in fertilizer production through different processes of prior production of phosphoric acid via acidulation procedures (wet process phosphoric acid: WPPA); a matter which represents the main industry of phosphate ores.
Phosphate rock is the major source of phosphorus in nature where the world resources of phosphate ores are estimated to be about 18000 million tons. It is worthy to mention herein that, the estimated uranium resource from Egyptian phosphates amount to at least 60,000 t U and other lanthanides in amount of 100 times higher than uranium, depending on the source of rock phosphate used which are being overlooked. It is actually considered as an important alternate or secondary source of uranium and lanthanides. So, there is an urgent need to re-balance the uranium and lanthanides strategy in Egypt to include a significant and proportionate focus on uranium and lanthanides extraction from phosphates.
The present work has thus been designed to investigate the potentiality of applying commercial cetrimide for the recovery of uranium from phosphoric acid originally obtained from El-Sebaya phosphate ore which produced from Abu Zaabal Fertilizers and Chemicals Co. Also , the use of synthesized the salicyaldehyde azine for the recovery of Lns from Abu Tartur phosphate rock sample is another concern of this thesis. For this purpose, several series of extraction and stripping experiments have been applied using a prepared phosphoric acid solution WPPA (30% P2O5) to optimize the different significant factors.
This work is composed of four main chapters; each of which can be summarized as following :
The first chapter includes; introduction about phosphate rocks and its occurrence in Egypt.
The second chapter concerns with a full literature survey reported for the extractive metallurgical processes of phosphate ore materials. Also, the recovery of uranium and lanthanides reviewed. The main points that have been discussed through this chapter can be summarized as following:
The geology of phosphate rock.
Production of phosphoric acid by (thermal and wet processes).
Reviewing of different techniques concerning the separation of uranium from phosphoric acid such as solvent extraction, ion exchange, liquid membrane and froth flotation.
Reviewing of different techniques concerning the separation of lanthanides from phosphoric acid including; H2SO4 , HNO3 and from HCl leaching processes.
The third chapter deals with the utilized chemicals , reagents, materials, and instruments .The experimental work which have been made in this thesis could be summarized as following:
Preparation of working solutions includes;wet-process phosphoric acid, preparation of standard U(VI) solution and the standard Ʃ lns .
salicyaldehyde azine preparation procedure: salicyaldehyde azine was prepared by dissolving hydrazine hydrate (0.05 mol) in 95% ethanol (25 mL) and added slowly with constant stirring to the aldehyde solution. The reaction was usually exothermic and was driven to completion by refluxing the reaction mixture for about 2h. cooling to room temperature led to the deposition of yellow crystals which were filtered off under suction and re-crystallized from ethanol/water (1:1) mixture and dried under vacuum. Compound structure was characterized by means of 1H NMR, ESI–MS, melting point instrument and X-ray diffraction techniques.
Analysis of major components together with U &Lns content of Abu Tarture ore material sample and phosphoric acid of Abu Zabal Co. were also determined.
Other data
| Title | EXTRACTION OF URANIUM AND LANTHANIDES FROM EGYPTIAN PHOSPHATE BY USING SYNTHETIC ORGANIC MATERIALS | Other Titles | استخلاص اليورانيوم واللانثانيدات من الفوسفات المصرية باستخدام مواد عضوية مخلقة | Authors | Amira Reda Hassan Mowafy | Issue Date | 2015 |
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