A new extractant-impregnated resin, alizarin red S -impregnated XAD-2010, is used as an adsorbent to separate and preconcentrate U(VI) and Th(IV) ions prior to their spectrophotometric determination. Various instrumental techniques such as elemental analysis, FTIR, and SEM analysis were employed for full characterization of the synthetic extractant. Optimization of the adsorption and elution conditions of U(VI) and Th(IV) ions using synthesized alizarin red S -impregnated XAD-2010 were studied. Langmuir isotherm model has the best fitting experimental data with a maximum adsorption capacity of 20.2 mg g −1 for U(VI) and 18.25 mg g −1 for Th(IV). The adsorption process of each metal ion by synthesized alizarin red S -impregnated XAD-2010 showed an exothermic pseudo-second-order adsorption process. The tolerance limits for several metal ions on alizarin red S -impregnated XAD-2010 were calculated, giving high tolerance limit. The optimized method was applied on international certified samples and different rock types bearing thorium and uranium with accurate results.

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A developed method was designed for gold determination directly in organic medium in some sedimentary rocks (fine sandstone, carbonates), pyrite, serpentine and international standard gold sample (MA-1a) using flame atomic absorption spectroscopy (FAAS). Instrumental parameters; burner angle, fuel flow rate, band pass and burner height together with chemical parameters; different media, leaching and interference effect were optimized to improve gold determination. Selective leaching using a new mixture (5% KCN, 5% Na2S2O3 and hydrogen peroxide) offered maximum leaching percentage of gold (>99%) with minimal concentration of accompanying elements. Extraction parameters using methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) from 3 M HCl were optimized for more than 99% gold extraction, followed by scrubbing using 0.1 M HCl. Gold was determined directly in organic phase. Beer's law was obeyed from 0.01 μg/ml to 10 μg/ml. Standard deviation (from 0.017 to 1.05) and percentage error (from 1.5% to 2.5%) using the present developed AAS method were calculated.

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Uranium as a nuclear element with strategic importance and gold as one of the important economic precious metals made their selective leaching from the sedimentary lower carbonaceous sandstone rocks, Southwestern Sinai, Egypt with economic concentrations (5ppm gold and 160 ppm uranium), an important issue for facilitating either their accurate determination or highest percentage recovery. A sequential leaching of uranium followed by gold was proposed in this work after studying individually their optimized leaching conditions. From the latter; a lixiviant mixture of sample to sodium carbonate ratio 1:1, sample to sodium bicarbonate ratio 1:1 together with sodium thiosulphate, as oxidant, 0.5g was used for the selective leaching of uranium. On the other hand, a leaching reagent mixture of 5% (w/v) from each of potassium cyanide, sodium thiosulphate and 10 ml from 30% hydrogen peroxide was used for the selective leaching of gold where several factors were optimized; concentration of individual component in each lixiviant, agitation time, solid to liquid ratio, temperature and pH. A percentage leaching of 97% and 96% for uranium and gold respectively were reached. Uranium was selectively separated using Amberlite IRA 402 Cl resin ion exchange resin with 99.5 % percentage recovery. The recovery of gold needs a large bulk weight from the sample due to its relatively low concentration.