Study on the reduction of unit consumption of nitric acid in the natural uranium purification

By analyzing nitric acid consumption in the process of dissolving, extracting solution preparation and anti extraction, theoretical nitric acid unit consumption was derived . Further industrial experiments discovered that either using diuranate or uranium oxide as raw material in the natural uranium purification process, nitric acid unit consumption can be controlled at 1.35 t, As the improvement of uranium content in the diuranate and U₃0₈, nitric acid unit consumption can be further reduced. For U₃0₈, improving the dissolution temperature and calcining U₃0₈ before dissolution can also reduce the nitric acid consumption. (authors)