Advances in Desorption of Uranium From Loaded Amidoxime Chelating Materials

Abstract

Uranium is one of the important strategic resources. It plays a decisive role in ensuring the stable development of nuclear energy. The shortage of uranium resources on land has aroused widespread concern. The total amount of uranium resources in seawater is more than 1 000 times that of land uranium resources. To ensure a stable supply of uranium, the research on the recovery of uranium from seawater has never stopped since the 1950s. The chelating functional adsorbent containing amidoxime group showed excellent adsorption ability and high selectivity for uranium over other co-existing metallic ions. In view of the important problems in the recovery of uranium, this paper reviewed the research progress in uranium desorption from the loaded uranium amidoxime materials. The desorption behavior, mechanism and characters of the loaded uranium materials with inorganic acidic solutions, alkaline solutions and organic complex solutions were summarized. The effect of co-existing metals on the uranium desorption was evaluated. Some problems were proposed to be investigated and solved further in the future. The possibility and feasibility for application of the advanced desorption technology in large-scale industrial desorption and recovery of uranium from the loaded chelating functional adsorbent containing amidoxime group were evaluated.

Keywords

• uranium
• adsorption materials containing amidoxime group
• desorption
• sea water