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Removal of Uranium from Mine Water Using Ion Exchange at Driefontein Mine
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Botha, Maria Elizabeth Bester, Lucyna Hardwick, Edmund |
| Copyright Year | 2009 |
| Abstract | Mine waters from gold and sometimes coal mining contain low but potentially harmful levels of uranium. These are not easily removed by conventional treatment technologies such as lime precipitation. The use of ion exchange resins for the recovery of uranium from water sources in especially mine water circuits is commonplace and can be considered to be state-of-the-art for medium to low uranium concentrations. A pilot plant was operated at Driefontein mine to determine the ability of ion exchangers (Lewatit Monoplus S6368) to reduce low levels of uranium to below acceptable International Discharge Limits. Results show that uranium can be reduced to below 10 µg/l consistently, and that the uranium can be effectively eluted from the ion exchange resin. The selected resin showed a very high affinity for uranium, resulting in very long run times and hence giving extremely low operating costs. Data has been obtained for engineering design purposes, and has exposed the particular challenges of long cycles and high flowrates. The process is both technically and economically feasible, and a full scale plant is under consideration. |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://www.imwa.info/docs/imwa_2009/IMWA2009_BothaHardwick.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
