Potential uranium supply from phosphoric acid: A U.S. analysis comparing solvent extraction and Ion exchange recovery

Abstract

Uranium fuels nuclear power. In 2015, nuclear power plants worldwide operated with over 375 GWe of total capacity corresponding to an annual uranium requirement of 174 million pounds U 3 O 8 (World Nuclear Association 2015). World nuclear capacity is projected to either increase slightly to 386 GWe (low estimate) or significantly to 632 GWe by 2035 (high estimate) and uranium requirements are expected to change correspondingly (International Atomic Energy Agency 2015). Conventional resources, defined as uranium resources with previous production as a main product, a co-product or a significant by-product, are estimated at 42 billion pounds U 3 O 8. 1 In comparison, unconventional uranium resources are uranium resources at very low-grade or those from which uranium could be recovered as a non-significant by-product (Nuclear Energy

Making Uranium Recovery from Phosphates Great Again?

“…Gabriel et al and Ulrich et al estimated that phosphate-fertilizer producers could provide slightly more than 15% of the world’s peacetime uranium requirements. Similar studies were conducted for Argentina, where uranium as a byproduct of phosphate-fertilizer production could account for 8–9% of uranium requirements, the EU (2% of uranium requirements), and the United States (10% of uranium requirements) . In these studies, the quantity of uranium that could be recovered from phosphates would often outperform current traditional domestic uranium production.…”

On the Sustainability and Progress of Energy Neutral Mineral Processing

“…In the short term this environmental impact of nuclear power can partly be reduced if uranium is extracted as a byproduct from another primary ore. Again, phosphate rock is used as an example to illustrate the environmental impact of uranium byproduct extraction vs. traditional uranium mining and milling. Uranium byproduct extraction from merchant grade phosphoric acid, an intermediate product during WPA processing, has been practiced on an industrial scale in the past [43][44][45][46] and is at the edge of being profitable again today [47][48][49]. Phosphate rocks contain considerable amounts of accompanying uranium in quantity and concentration [50][51][52][53][54].…”

Selective Extraction of Rare Earth Elements from Phosphoric Acid by Ion Exchange Resins

“…Solid supports are generally heat resistant [2,3]. This characteristic is very important because of relatively high operating temperatures of phosphoric acid solutions (40-50 • C after storage).…”

“…Despite these possible limitations, a number of resins have been commercialized, making REE sorption a potential attractive alternative. As an illustration, the cost of an ion exchange (IX) process has recently been compared to that of a solvent extraction (SX) process in the case of uranium recovery from phosphoric acid [2]. Operating costs appear to be much lower for IX technology than those induced by SX ($18 instead of $32 for the production of one pound of U 3 O 8 ).…”