ACID LEACHING OF URANIUM FROM KAOLINIZED GRANITE OF EL SELA AREA, SOUTH EASTERN DESERT, EGYPT

El Sela area is one of the promising localities for the occurrences of uranium mineralization in
the granitic rocks of the south Eastern Desert of Egypt. The area is a good example for highly altered
samples as hematitization, espisyenitization and argillic alteration. The main purpose of this work is to
answer for a question “ Is the physical separation techniques for the highly altered samples more effective
in the leaching efficiency of uranium than the original sample?” to answer on this question it is necessary
to study the characteristics of uranium leaching using sulfuric acid from a representative sample of this
ore material assaying about 0.454% uranium and optimize the relevant factors then comparing between
the leaching efficiency of the original sample versus the leaching efficiency of the physical beneficiated
products. The optimum conditions for uranium leachability on the original sample reached 98% after 2
hours agitation time using 60 g\l sulphuric acid concentration, 1:3 solid\liquid ratio and -0.1 mm grain size
at 80°C. On the other hand the same optimum conditions applied on the physical beneficiated products
and the leaching efficiency reached to about 98% for sink fraction and about 98% for float fraction
which proved that there is no requirement for the prior physical beneficiation of the highly altered
sample.