Reactive stripping and precipitation of uranium in a microchannel

Synthesis of reactor grade uranium typically involves dissolution of uranium concentrate in nitric acid and the selective extraction of uranium using tri-n-butyl phosphate (TBP). The purified uranium is usually stripped by water or dilute nitric acid. The product of uranium stripping (i.e., uranyl solution) is subsequently treated with ammonium hydroxide/air-ammonia mixture to form ammonium diuranate (ADU). A novel method to precipitate ADU directly from loaded organic phase is presented. This process has several advantages (e.g., reduced volume of waste, easy handling, etc.) and can lead to elimination of some processing steps of uranium refining, such as separate stages of stripping (involving a large number of stages) and batch precipitation