Feasibility studies for processing nuclear pure uranyl solution from Tummalapalle sodium di uranate

Our growing and aspiring population and industry needs substantial amount of energy. Indigenous effort is on to fill this gap between the need and supply of energy, by tapping from different sources. Considering the global warming due to green house gas emission by carbon based fuel, the use of nuclear energy is inevitable and Department of Atomic Energy is widening the program by constructing new reactors to increase the share of electricity generation by use of uranium (U) as fuel. In order to recover U from the complex carbonate ore, a novel alkaline leaching route was developed and deployed at Tummalapalle U mill to treat the carbonate ore to produce uranyl carbonate leach liquor and further precipitated as sodium diuranate (SDU) by sodium hydroxide at controlled pH. Efforts were made to precipitate U directly from carbonate leach liquor in the form of MDU and phosphate where contaminations from. the impurities is less compared to SDU with minimum loss of U in effluent. However, these processes have certain limitations which restrict their use at plant level. Therefore, the only option left is to purify SDU obtained in Tummalapalle U mill. Besides it is a universally accepted practice to precipitate U as SDU from carbonate leach solution