Physical and chemical processes of Abu Rusheid cataclastic rocks for recovering niobium, zirconium, and uranium compounds
 
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nuclear materials authority
 
 
Publication date: 2021-08-30
 
 
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Hanaa Abdelaal Abu Khoziem   

nuclear materials authority
 
 
Physicochem. Probl. Miner. Process. 2021;57(5):137-152
 
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ABSTRACT
Cataclastic rocks of Abu Rushied area (South Eastern Desert, Egypt) characterized by the presence of niobium, tantalum, zirconium minerals as well as uranium-thorium minerals. Physical upgrading process was applied using gravity and magnetic separation techniques to concentrate these economic minerals mainly to obtain the magnetic niobium concentrate at 0.2- 0.5 ampere, beside the non-magnetic Zr and U at 1.5 ampere. The chemical processing upon niobium concentrate was performed using NH4F roasting process at 250ºC followed by selective precipitation of Nb as Nb-sulfide. An alkaline fusion using NaOH was applied upon zirconium concentrate at the optimum conditions of: zircon concentrate/ NaOH mass ratio 1/2, fusion temperature of 650ºC and 2.5h fusion time followed by selective precipitation of Zr as Zr- tartrate. Finally, two flowsheets were drawn summarizing the whole recovery processes.
eISSN:2084-4735
ISSN:1643-1049
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