Sorption characteristics of uranium from sulfate leach liquor by commercial strong base anion exchange resins

The extraction of uranium from natural rock is extremely vital in field of nuclear applications. In this work, the sorption properties of uranium from sulfate leach liquor using Amberlyst A-27 and Dowex 21K resins were evaluated. The sorption features such as contact time, initial pH value, initial uranium concentration and temperature, were optimized to get the best sorption uptake. The models calculations of sorption including kinetics, isotherm and thermodynamic were applied. The highest sorption capacity of uranium on Amberlyst A-27 and Dowex 21K was 131.57 and 105.26 mg/g respectively. The sorption process was confirmed using (XRF), FTIR and SEM techniques. The XRF data emphasized that uranium was sorbed on the resins as uranyl sulfate.