Studies on adsorbents for uranium from sea water

55-58Nineteen adsorbents were tested to concentrate uranium from sea water. Mass distribution coefficients and percentage yields were determined for the adsorbents from low and high concentrations of uranium in the medium. Active carbon, hydrated aluminium oxide, copper ferrocyanide, potassium zinc ferro cyanide, calcium phosphate (acidic and basic) were found unsuitable either due to their solubility or chemical effect induced in them during their contact with sea water. Titanium phosphate though showed a large distribution coefficient of ~7 x 104 in batch studies, reflected a slow pick-up rate during passage of large volumes of sea water through the column bed and yielded the poor recovery of ~ 26%. In contrast, hydrated titanium oxide showed a fast pick-up rate (T ~2 min) in the batch studies and a good yield of 92 ± 3% was obtained by the passage of 75.1 of sea water spiked with uranium to 4 times the concentration of open ocean water. Maximum amount of uranium that could be obtained on this bed was 1.4 mg U/g. This adsorbent could be utilised to concentrate uranium from sea water if the practical problems of compaction and algal growth are eliminated