Behavior and Mobility of U Series Radionuclides during Gibbsite Processing, Abu Thor Locality, Sinai, Egypt

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Nuclear Materials Authority, P.O. Box 530, El-Maadi, Cairo, Egypt.

10.1088/1742-6596/2830/1/012026

Abstract

Gamma spectrometry was employed to measure the natural activity of radionuclides using High purity germanium detector during the leaching of gibbsite sample from Abu Thor locality using three different organic agents. Among these agents, EDTA exhibited the lowest leaching efficiency for 238U, approximately 21%, while oxalic and citric acids achieved efficiencies of 42.77% and 32.44%, respectively. The leaching process revealed that the leaching efficiency of 234U and 232Th were higher than that of 238U, 230Th, and 235U. Additionally, the radionuclides 226Ra, 214Pb, and 214Bi were predominantly found in the residue of the three organic agents. The oxalic acid residual sample shows the highest ratios for 230Th/238U, 226Ra/238U, and 226Ra /230Th ratios, all exceeding 1, with values of 1.33, 1.6, and 1.22, respectively. Therefore, the 226Ra/238U ratio is deemed superior for studying the behavior and mobility of U.

Keywords

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics