Uranium(VI) sorption from aqueous solution using commercial anion exchange resins; towards sustainable application in circular economy and to achieve UN-SDGs

Water is the source of all life, the most important liquid in our ecosystem. The discharge of radioactive liquid effluent into the environment is a serious problem for the surrounding environment and human bodies. In this respect, investigating a simple process for uranium recovery from radioactive wastewater, driven by the circular economy (CE)-based liquid waste management (LWM) could assist in supplying uranium for the nuclear power stations, preventing the accumulation of this hazardous element into the environment and securing clean water (i.e. meeting the goals of the UN-SDG). In this contribution, Purolite commercial strong anion exchange resins namely: MTA4801PF and MTA4601PFSO4 were applied for uranium sorption from radioactive raffinate solution. Kinetics, isotherm, and thermodynamic of the sorption process were investigated by batch technique. The attained results declare that MTA4601PFSO4 has higher tendency for U(VI) capture than MTA4801PF resin. The applied resins exhibit the same kinetic and isotherm performance whereas the sorption process are described well using Pseudo-second-order kinetic model and Langmuir isotherm model. Thermodynamic investigation declare that the sorption process is endothermic, feasible and spontaneous. The sorption capacity of MTA4801PF and MTA4601PFSO4 were about 71 and 66 mg g-1 respectively. U(VI) desorption (~95%) was successfully achieved using 0.5 M sulfuric acid. The application of commercial resins on sulfate leach liquor of Egyptian ores demonstrated that the applied commercial resins exhibit good sorption performance despite of the complexity of the solution.