Uranium resource processing: Secondary resources, India

While the primary resources of uranium are the main contributors to the industrial uranium production, the secondary resources are becoming important from the viewpoint of eco-friendliness and resource conservation. The secondary resources include uraniferous phosphates processed by the fertiliser industry monazite, which is processed for rare earths elements, uraniferous carbonaceous materials and ultimately seawater. A significant advantage of the secondary resources is that the major cost of mining and processing is borne by the parent valuable content and only the incremental cost of uranium recovery needs to be considered. A second major advantage results from the radiation safety requirements. The primary sources, because of higher uranium content, are associated with higher levels of radioactive daughter products of uranium, which leads to imposition of strict radiological safety norms to mining and processing personnel, industry and environment. Secondary resources, by contrast, require very little additional safety engineering features to be incorporated. (author)