Assessment of the Greenhouse Gas Footprint and Environmental Impact of CO_(2)and O_(2)in situ Uranium Leaching

Under the new development philosophy of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality,CO_(2)and O_(2)in situ leaching(ISL)has been identified as a promising technique for uranium mining in China,not only because it solves carbon dioxide utilization and sequestration,but it also alleviates the environmental burden.However,significant challenges exist in assessment of CO_(2)footprint and water-rock interactions,due to complex geochemical processes.Herein this study conducts a three-dimensional,multicomponent reactive transport model(RTM)of a field-scale CO_(2)and O_(2)ISL process at a typical sandstone-hosted uranium deposit in Songliao Basin,China.Numerical simulations are performed to provide new insight into quantitative interpretation of the greenhouse gas(CO_(2))footprint and environmental impact(SO_(4)^(2–))of the CO_(2)and O_(2)ISL,considering the potential chemical reaction network for uranium recovery at the field scale.RTM results demonstrate that the fate of the CO_(2)could be summarized as injected CO_(2)dissolution,dissolved CO_(2)mineralization and storage of CO_(2)as a gas phase during the CO_(2)and O_(2)ISL process.Furthermore,compared to acid ISL,CO_(2)and O_(2)ISL has a potentially smaller environmental footprint,with 20%of SO_(4)^(2–)concentration in the aquifer.The findings improve our fundamental understanding of carbon utilization in a long-term CO_(2)and O_(2)ISL system and provide important environmental implications when considering complex geochemical processes.

Improved uranium leaching efficiency from low-permeability sandstone using low-frequency vibration in the CO_(2)+O_(2) leaching process

Extraction of uranium from low-permeability sandstone is a long-standing challenge in mining.The improvement of sandstone permeability has therefore become a key research focus to improve the uranium leaching effect.To address the low-permeability problem and corresponding leaching limits,leaching experiments are performed using newly developed equipment that could apply low-frequency vibration to the sandstone samples.The test results indicate that low-frequency vibration significantly improves the uranium leaching performance and permeability of the sandstone samples.The leaching effect of low-frequency vibration treatment is approximately nine times more effective than ultrasonic vibration treatment,whereas the concentration of uranium ions generated without vibration treatment is not detectable.Mathematical model that considers the combined action of physico-mechanical vibration and chemical erosion is established to describe the effect of low-frequency vibration on the permeability.The calculated results are in good agreement with the tested permeability values.This study thus offers a new method to effectively leach more uranium from low-permeability sandstone using CO_(2)+O_(2)and provides an insight into the impact of low-frequency vibration on the uranium leaching process.

Oxidative leaching kinetics of molybdenum-uranium ore in H2SO4 using H2O2 as an oxidizing agent

The processing of molybdenum-uranium ore in a sulfuric acid solution using hydrogen peroxide as an oxidant has been investigated. The leaching temperature, hydrogen peroxide concentration, sulfuric acid concentration, leaching time, particle size, liquid-to-solid ratio and agitation speed all have significant effects on the process. The optimum process operating parameters were： temperature： 95℃; H2O2 concentration： 0.5 M; sulfuric acid concentration： 2.5 M; time： 2 h; particle size： 74 gm, liquid-to-solid ratio： 14 ： 1 and agitation speed： 600 rpm. Under these experimental conditions, the extraction efficiency of molybdenum was about 98.4%, and the uranium extraction efficiency was about 98.7%. The leaching kinetics of molybdenum showed that the reaction rate of the leaching process is controlled by the chemical reaction at the particle surface. The leaching process follows the kinetic model 1 - （1-X）1/3 = kt with an apparent activation energy of 40.40 kJ/mole. The temperature, concentrations of H202 and H2SO4 and the mesh size are the main factors that influence the leaching rate. The reaction order in H2SO4 was 1.0012 and in H202 it was 1.2544.

Rare earth metals sorption recovery from uranium in situ leaching process solutions

Sorption characteristics of ion exchange resins 001 × 7, 005 × 8, D72 regarding rare earth metals （REM） during extraction from barren solution of uranium sorption in dynamic conditions were investigated. It was identified that D72 resin capacity on analyzed REM was 2.46 mg.cm-3 after passing 220 BV （bed volume） of initial solution with 95 % recovery of element of REM with the lowest affinity. Researches on REM desorption in dynamic conditions from investigated ion exchange resins by solution of 1.7 mol.L-1 HNO3 and 8.0 mol.L-1 NHnNO3 with 0.2 mol.L-1 HNO3 passing were carded out. It was identified that using desorption solution based on ammonium nitrate allows to achieve acceptable recovery degree of REM from the resin. The possibility of organization of a circulating desorption solution system increases the perspectives of nitrate ammonium solution usage.