Applied investigation for the flotation methods has been conducted on the reduction of uranium concentration in the waste water

This investigation aims at determining the effectiveness of flotation methods in reducing the concentration of uranium element/radionuclide that potentially contaminates the environment. The effectiveness of flotation methods was experimentally assessed by investigating the process parameters affect on the reduction of uranium concentration in the waste water after being passed on coprecipitation step and was proceeded to the flotation process. The process parameters used as the effectiveness of reducing the concentration of uranium are the volume of sodium oleate collector, pH; as well as the volume of tetra ethylene glycol (TEG) as the frother added that resulted in the highest recovery efficiency (R in %). The experimental process was conducted batch wisely with the constant simulated waste feed of 100 ppm and the co-precipitant concentration Fe(III) and Al(III) of 100 ppm; pH was varied from 4 - 2, the volume of sodium oleate collector (CH₃-(CH₂)₇-CH=CH-(CH₂)₇-COONa) was varied from 10 – 45 ml and TEG was varied from 10 - 30 drops. From the treated waste above was obtained the trend data of increasing R due to the addition of sodium oleate collector volume from 10 - 45 ml with R = 94.56%, whereas for the co-precipitant Al(III) by the same amount of collector and frother yielded the largest R = 96.4% at pH = 11 and the amount of collector=30 ml as well as the frother = 0.50 mI. (author)