A Suggested Procedure for Chemical Processing of Beryl from Received Geological Sample, Eastern Desert, Egypt by Solvent Extraction Technique

Document Type : Original research papers

Authors

Processing of Reactors Materials Department, Production Sector, Nuclear Materials Authority

Abstract

Processing of the beryl from received geological sample collected from Eastern Desert of Egypt has been studied via acidic fusion process using K2SO4 under different factors. The recovery of beryllium from the prepared sulfate solution has been accomplished by solvent extraction namely; TOA. The optimum conditions for sulfate fusion for almost complete breakdown of beryllium guarantee 1/3 ore/salt ratio at 550oC for 3.5 h. The relevant conditions for the extraction and stripping of beryllium by trioctyl amine determined. The studied optimum extraction conditions involved 8 × 10-3M TOA concentration, 1/1 O/A ratio at a pH of 0.8 and 15 min. Beryllium was stripped by 1.5M H2SO4 solution in 1/1 O/A ratio for 20 min. From the corresponding McCabe- Thiele diagrams, it was noticed that 3 theoretical stages for each of the extraction and stripping separately were required. From the stripped solution, beryllium was precipitated as beryllium hydroxide at pH 9 using 10% NaOH solution. The produced beryllium hydroxide has then been properly dried at 150 °C for 1 hr and analyzed using AAS.

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