Potentiality of uranium adsorption from wet phosphoric acid using amine-impregnated cellulose

Abstract

The prepared amine-impregnated cellulose (AIC) was found to be an efficient adsorbent for uranium originated from El-Sebaiya phosphate ore. The impregenation process was carried out by copolymerization between pretreated cellulose and a mixture of (tri-ethyl amine and epi-chorohydrine). In the present work, two working solutions were used. The first solution was a synthesized phosphoric acid (35% P2O5 and 100 ppm U) used for optimizing the loading process of uranium. The second one was used as a case study for adsorption of uranium from a real phosphoric acid (WPPA) prepared from El-Sebaiya phosphate ore (P2O5 35%, 100 ppm U). The obtained equilibrium data were found to be satisfactory fitted with Langmuir isotherm. A maximum-metal uptake of 56.5 mgU/g AIC was observed at the obtained optimum conditions. Also, elution process of uranium has been achieved at 1 M of 30 ml Na2CO3 solution/g AIC after 15 min contact time. From the latter, a marketable product of sodium di-uranate was prepared.

Keywords

• Amine-impregnated cellulose
• Uranium
• Phosphoric acid
• Separation