DETERMINATION OF VALUABLE ELEMENTS IN NATURAL PHOSPHATES

Natural phosphates are used on large scale in the fertilizer industry. The usual process of the chemical attack is sulfuric (predominant) an d nitric acids. The liquid phosphoric acid phase resulted contains dis solved valuable elements like: uranium and rare earths elements (REEs) . Uranium and REEs are recovered in some technologies as valuable prod ucts. It is therefore important to know uranium and REEs content in na tural phosphates in view to decide on their recovery. In this paper de terminations were carried out to find the uranium and REEs contents. T he concentrations involved are low, therefore, it is difficult to find a classical reliable method without incurring important losses, i.e., errors. In this work uranium and REEs were determined by physical met hods like: neutron activation analysis (NAA), emission spectroscopy, m ass spark spectrometry and X-ray fluorescence. The results obtained we re acceptable and intercomparison between various methods was carried out. It was found that most reliable results were given by mass spark spectrometry and activation analysis. The data resulted are in good ag reement with uranium and REEs in the green cake (uranium tetrafluoride ) and in the REEs concentrate obtained by solvent extraction from phos phoric acid.