Prospects for the recovery of uranium from seawater. Final report. [URPE]

Technical Report · Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 EST 1980

OSTI ID:5087101

Best, F R; Driscoll, M J

A computer program entitled URPE (Uranium Recovery Performance and Economics) has been developed for analysis of a plant recovering uranium from seawater. The conceptual system design consists of a floating oil-rig type platform, using seawater forced through hydrous titanium oxide. Uranium is recovered from the seawater by adsorption and eluted later. The equilibrium isotherm and the diffusion constant for the uranyl-HTO system, which are needed for bed performance calculations, have been calculated. The URPE program has been benchmarked against previous studies by ORNL and Exxon, and found to make comparable performance and economic estimates. The URPE code was then used to identify optimum bed operating conditions. Thin beds of small, thinly-coated particles are the preferred bed configuration, and actively pumped systems outperform current driven units. Based on URPE, the minimum expected costs of uranium recovered from seawater would be no lower than approx. 316 (1979$)/lb U/sub 3/O/sub 8/ for state-of-the-art adsorber material (capacity equal to 210 mg U/kg Ti), but might be reduced to the level of breakeven attractiveness of approx. 150 (1979$)/lb U/sub 3/U/sub 8/ if at least a four-fold increase in adsorption capacity could be achieved.

• Research Organization: Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge (USA). Energy Lab.; Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge (USA). Dept. of Nuclear Engineering
• DOE Contract Number: AM01-76EI02295
• OSTI ID: 5087101
• Report Number(s): MIT-EL-80-001; MITNE-231; TRN: 80-017709
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
COMPUTER CODES
U CODES
SEAWATER
URANIUM
RECOVERY
COST
OFFSHORE PLATFORMS
OPTIMIZATION
PERFORMANCE
SEPARATION PROCESSES
SIMULATION
TITANIUM OXIDES
ACTINIDES
CHALCOGENIDES
ELEMENTS
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
METALS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
TITANIUM COMPOUNDS
TRANSITION ELEMENT COMPOUNDS
WATER
050400* - Nuclear Fuels- Feed Processing