Recovery of uranium from carbonaceous shale, North Fayium depression Western Desert, Egypt

ABSTRACT

Technological sample of carbonaceous shale ore from Fayium Depression has been processed. This sample assays 350 mg/kg of uranium. From an economic point of view, citric acid is used as a lixiviant agent for avoiding consumption of acid. Under the optimum conditions using 150 g/l citric acid concentration at 65^ºC temperature with a liquid – solid ratio of 3/1 and 6 h agitation time, uranium leaching efficiency achieves 96.0%. The kinetic data applying the shrinking core model showed that the mechanism of leaching of uranium is controlled by the product layer diffusion process with apparent activation energy equals to 11.84 kJ/mol.

KEYWORDS:

• Uranium
• citric acid
• leaching
• kinetic
• North Fayium depression Egypt

Disclosure statement

No, potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).