Recovery of uranium, thorium and zirconium from allanite by extraction chromatography using impregnated chromosorb Bina Gupta a , Poonma Malik a , Zareena Begum Irfan b,n a Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand 247667, India b Centre of Excellence in Environmental Economics, Madras School of Economics, Gandhi Mandapam Road, Chennai 600025, Tamil Nadu, India article info Article history: Received 26 September 2013 Received in revised form 4 November 2013 Accepted 4 November 2013 Keywords: Cyanex 923 Uranium Thorium Zirconium Lanthanides Allanite abstract Chromosorb 102 impregnated with Cyanex 923 was used as a stationary phase in the extraction chromatographic separation of lanthanides, U(VI), Th(IV) and Zr(IV). Batch studies were carried out to investigate the uptake behaviour of these metal ions, along with few other metal ions. The effect of different parameters like equilibration time, concentration of acid, metal ions and extractant has been studied. The distribution data has been used to develop suitable eluting agents. The sorbing and desorbing capacity of the column for U(VI), Th(IV) and Zr(IV) was determined. Results indicate an insignificant change in the efficiency of the column up to 10 such cycles. The practical utility of the column has been demonstrated by the recovery of around 95% of U(VI), Th(IV) and Zr(IV) from allanite sample with a purity of around 97% 72%. & 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. 1. Introduction Separation science plays an important role in the development of recovery and purification processes. A variety of separation methods such as solvent extraction, ion exchange, adsorption and Contents lists available at ScienceDirect journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wri Water Resources and Industry 2212-3717 & 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wri.2013.11.002 n Corresponding author. Tel.: þ91 44 22300304; fax: þ91 44 22354847. E-mail address: zareena@mse.ac.in (Z.B. Irfan). Water Resources and Industry 4 (2013) 21–31 Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license. brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector