STUDY OF FACTORS AFFECTING URANIUM STRIPPING FROM DEHMA TOPO SOLVENT BY FACTORIAL DESIGN/

Uranium is recovered from wet phosphoric acid by a DEHPA/TOPO mixture. It was found that stripping is the most crucial step in this process. Several studies were undertaken to understand this process in greater depth. This study investigates the main operating variables, mainly c oncentration of phosphoric acid, temperature and concentration of iron on stripping, by the method of factorial design. A mathematical model was developed to represent the data. Another experiment was undertake n to find out the effect of fluoride ion on stripping. The results agr ee well with those of earlier investigations, namely that it is benefi cial to increase the concentration of phosphoric acid and the temperat ure. The increase in fluoride ion concentration leads to an enhancemen t of the stripping distribution ratio.