Enhanced removal of uranium (VI) from leach liquors by aniline - polyaniline with Chinese D263B resin.

Aniline and polyaniline was successfully impregnated with Chinese D263B resin and polymerisation prepared via using polyvinyl alcohol as a surfactant and benzoyl peroxide to form impregnated D263B/aniline and D263B/polyaniline were used for enhancing the removal of U(VI) from Abu El Toyour leach liquor. The impregnated D263B/polyaniline was characterised by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). Experimental measurements have been optimised by batch extraction technique such as pH, contact time, initial U(VI) concentration, resin dosage, temperature and eluting agents. It was found that the maximum uptake capacity of Chinese D263B resin is 40 mg/g at room temperature, Chinese D263B resin with aniline is 86.95 mg/g and Chinese D263B resin with polyaniline is 121.95 mg/g. The resulted equilibrium data fitted well with Langmuir isotherm model. From kinetic parameters, it was found that U(VI) adsorption followed the pseudo-second order kinetic model. The thermodynamic parameters ΔH, ΔS and ΔG were also evaluated indicating exothermic, randomness and non-spontaneous adsorption process. U(VI) can be eluted approximately 99% from the loaded D263B/polyaniline using 1 M (1:1) NaCl/H2SO4. Finally, the optimised factors have been applied for enhanced U(VI) removal from Abu El Toyour leach liquor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]