URANIUM REMOVAL FROM NITRATE SOLUTION BY CATION EXCHANGE RESIN (AMBERLITE IR 120), ADSORPTION AND KINETIC CHARACTERISTICS

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Nuclear Materials Authority,Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

The present work aims to study the adsorption behavior of uranium ions from nitrate solutions using
the strong acid cation exchange Amberlite IR120 resin. Batch shaking sorption experiments are carried
out to evaluate the performance of the studied resin in the uranium adsorption. The adsorption parameters
including contact time, pH, initial uranium concentration and temperature have been optimized. The
physical parameters including the adsorption kinetics, the isotherm models and the thermodynamic data
have also been determined to describe the nature of the uranium adsorption by the investigated resin.
The modellated data has been found to agree with both the exothermic pseudo first order reaction and the
Langmuir isotherm. The applied procedure was used for uranium ions removal from scrub and raffinate
liquors.