Innovative Elution Processes for Recovering Uranium and Transition Metals from Amidoxime-based Adsorbents
- Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (United States). Dept. of Chemistry
Amidoxime-based polymer fibers are considered one of the most promising materials for sequestering uranium from seawater. The high-surface-area polymer fibers containing amidoxime and carboxylate groups synthesized by Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL-AF1) show very high uranium adsorption capacities known in the literature. Effective elution of uranium and repeated use of the adsorbent are important factors affecting the cost of producing uranium from seawater using this material. Traditional acid leaching of uranium followed by KOH conditioning of the fiber causes chemical changes and physical damage to the ORNL-AF1 adsorbent. Two alkaline solution leaching methods were developed by this project, one uses a highly concentrated (3 M) potassium bicarbonate solution at pH 8.3 and 40 °C; the other uses a mixture of sodium carbonate and hydrogen peroxide at pH 10.4. Both elution methods do not require KOH conditioning prior to reusing the fiber adsorbent. The conditions of eluting uranium from the amidoxime-based adsorbent using these alkaline solutions are confirmed by thermodynamic calculations. The bicarbonate elution method is selective for uranium recovery compared to other elution methods and causes no chemical change to the fiber material based on FTIR spectroscopy
- Research Organization:
- Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Nuclear Energy (NE)
- DOE Contract Number:
- NE0000661
- OSTI ID:
- 1351974
- Report Number(s):
- 13-5007; 13-5004
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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