Separation of uranium from rare earths in chloride medium using Alamine 336

Present work was carried out to optimize a process to separate uranium from rare earths using Alamine-336 (tri-n-octyl amine). This paper describes the process of extraction of uranium from chloride liquor generated after dissolution of impure SDU cake in hydrochloric acid. The solvent used in this study is Alamine-336 which was procured from M/s. Chemical Centre, Mumbai. Dodecane was used as diluent and isodecanol as phase modifier. The extraction and stripping experiments were carried out in separating funnels shaken manually at room temperature. The contact time was fixed at five minutes for all the experiments. Following contact, the aqueous phase and the organic phase were separated and the aqueous phase was taken up for analysis. Analysis of uranium and rare earths were done by ICP-AES. Metal extraction by amines depends on the capacity of the metallic ions to form anionic/neutral species in the aqueous media; these species are then extracted by anion exchange mechanism or by adduct formation respectively