An industrial heap bioleaching of fluorine-bearing uranium ore
745 Urnium Mine is a major uranium mine production base in northern Guangdong province, south of China, with the uranium ore mining, the grade of ore most is below 0. 1 % by weight. It is not economical to extract uranium from low grade ore by chemical acid heap leaching. It is necessary to develop an alternative process to enable the efficient and economic recovery of the uranium. A new technology—heap bioleaching is introduced. In summer 2008, a 50 000 ton industrial heap was constructed to the mine site. A representative ore sample was mined, crushed to 80% - 8 mm, and built to one heap, the ore grade is 0. 0823% , irrigation of the heap was started in June 2008. A mixed bacteria with the characterizations of high activity and high fluorine tolerance was applied to the industrial heap bioleaching test to improve leaching kinetics conditions, enhanced leaching rate, decreased acid consumption and shorten leaching time. After 85 days of performance, the slag uranium leaching rate was 88. 7% that calculated b y its residue has been recovered, content of uranium in residue was 0. 0093% , which was obviously better than conventional acid heap leaching process (uranium in residue was 0. 0211% ) . The acid consumption rate was 2.58% by ore weight. Compared with conventional acid heap leaching process, the leaching period was shortened about 90 days, leaching rate was enhanced by about 1. 7% , and acid consumption was decreased by about 3.04%. During heap bioleaching process, in the leaching solution, containing 1000 -2000 mg/L of fluorine, the mixed bacteria still worked well, which indicated it had high fluorine tolerance. The study has proven that 745 Uranium Mine ore is well suited for heap bioleaching.
uranium ore industrial heap bioleaching fluorine
Xuegang Wang Jiang Li Zhanxue Sun Yajie Liu
State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Nuclear Resources and Environment,East China Institute of Tech Chemistry, Biological and Materials Sciences Department, East China Institute of Technology, Fuzhou, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, East China Institute of Technology, Fuzhou, 34400
国际会议
The 19th International Biohydrometallurgy Symposium(第19届国际生物湿法冶金大会 IBS2011)
长沙
英文
601-603
2011-09-18(万方平台首次上网日期,不代表论文的发表时间)