Recovery of Rare Earth Elements from Uranium Concentrate by Using Cation Exchange Resin

During the purification of uranium concentrate (crude yellow cake) obtained from treatment of uraniferous granite, in the north eastern desert of Egypt (Gabal Gattar), it was noticed that this concentrate contains relatively high level of rare earth elements (REE) (1.1078 ppm). The present study is an attempt to recover the REE from the prepared uranium concentrate using ion exchange technique. The used resin during the study was dowex 50WX8 and the operating conditions for rare earth elements extraction have been experimentally optimized by applied batch technique. It was found that the maximum REE adsorption capacity of the studied resin was found to produce 82.74 mg/g wet settled resin (wsr) which represents about 93.23 % of the original capacity of the studied resin at 1:30 solid/liquid (S/L) ratio, 100 rpm stirring speed and pH 1 for 120 min stirring time at room temperature. The maximum REE desorbed from the loaded resin was 72.72 mg (87.88 %) and obtained using 1 M NaCl, 1:5 solid/liquid ratio and 150 rpm stirring speed for about 90 min agitation time. The REE was precipitated from the eluate solution by using 20% oxalic acid solution at pH 1.8 then the obtained REE oxalate precipitate was filtered, washed, dried and then calcined at 800°C for 3 hours to obtain the REE oxide. The purity of the final prepared oxide was reached to 86.18% and analysis of the total REE in the concentrate assayed 74.72% according to the chemical analysis.