Extraction of Boron and Vanadium from Abu Hamata Alkali Leach Solution by Using Ion Exchange Resin Abdellah, W.M., Amer, T. E. , Abdel Wahab, G. M., AlShami, A. S. Nuclear Materials Authority, P.O Box 530, El-Maadi, Cairo, Egypt. El-Shahat, M.F. Ain Shams University, Faculty of Science, Chemistry Department, Cairo, Egypt. Abstract-- This work is concerned with the recovery of boron and vanadium from an ore residue originally collected from Abu Hamata mineralized sandy claystone ore material. The latter was previously treated to selectively extract its uranium and lanthanides contents through applying H 2 SO 4 acid agitation leaching step. These two metal values which were left behind in the spent residue was found to assay 0.123 and 0.186 % for boron and vanadium respectively. The present work involves alkali roasting of the spent residue with NaOH at the obtained optimum roasting conditions. This was followed by water leaching of the roasted matrix to bring out the dissolved boron and vanadium. The latter's were then extracted via Amberlite IRA 743 anion exchange resin. Pure products of H 3 BO 3 acid and V 2 O 5 were obtained. A tentative technical flowsheet was proposed and described. Keywords: Extraction, Boric acid, Vanadium oxide, Ion exchange resins, Abu Hamata sandy claystone I. INTRODUCTION Abu Hamata sandy claystone rock facies of Um Bogma Formation, which occurs at Abu Zeneima area, Southwestern Sinai, Egypt, is considered as one of the most important occurrences of U mineralization beside the associated economic metal values e.g. Ln, B, V, Zn, Cu,…. etc [1]. Either uranium and lanthanides or boron and vanadium were found in relatively reasonable grades, 0.183, 0.137, 0.11 and o.175 % respectively. It is worthy to mentioned herein that, the authors have studied in detail the mineralogical and chemical composition of the raw ore material as well as the optimum conditions for selective recovery of uranium and lanthanides through applying H 2 SO 4 acid agitation leaching process. These conditions involved 5% H 2 SO 4 acid concentration , S/L mixing ratio of 1/2, leaching time of 1h and leaching temperature of 75 0 C. In addition, The obtained results from the mineralogical study revealed that the study ore material consists mainly of montmorillonite as the main clay mineral (K,Ca)Al 2 SiO 4 together with quartiz (SiO 2 ), hematite (Fe 2 O 3 ) and the secondary uranium mineral renardite Pb(UO 2 ) 2 (PO 4 ) 2 .8H 2 O]. On the other hand, the study ore material shows no specific minerals for either lanthanides, boron or vanadium. This is probably due to their adsorption upon clay mineral of the study ore material. With respect to boron and vanadium recovery studies, several authors have been studied the recovery of both boron and vanadium from their leach liquors via anion exchange resins [2-9]. In this context, the ore material left after uranium and lanthanides can be probably processed for the dissolution and recovery of the other contained metal values namely; boron and vanadium. The latter would be greatly facilitated after U and Ln recovery. However, the present work aims to prepare pure H 3 BO 3 and V 2 O 5 . II. EXPERIMENTAL A .Materials The bead-type ion exchange resin, Amberlite IRA 743 (Rohman and Hass ion exchange resins) is a macroporous styrenic resin with methyl glucamine functionality. It is commonly known that boron and vanadium are retained, borate and vanadate ions are complexed by two sorbitol groups, and a proton is retained by a tertiary amine site, which behaves as a weakly basic anion exchanger. The characteristics of Amberlite IRA 743 are listed in table (1). The chemicals used during the experiments and analysis were reagent-grade Merck products. Table(1): Characteristics of ion exchange resin Amberlite IRA743 Parameter Amberlite IRA743 Matrix Macroporous polystyrene Functional group N-Methylglucamine Physical form Beige-coloured beads Ionic form as shipped Free Base (FB) Total capacity 0.8eq/L Moisture holding capacity 48 to 54 % (FB form) Shipping weight 700 g/L (43.7 lbs/ft3) Particle size Harmonic mean size Uniformity coefficient < 0.300 mm 0.500 – 0.700 mm 1.6 1 % max B. Alkali roasting of the ore residue The alkali roasting process was conducted by mixing solid NaOH with the spent residue at slightly high temperature for different periods of times. After that the cooled roasted matrix was then undergoes water leaching to dissolve its boron and vanadium contents. All the experimental roasting procedures were conducted by using constant weight (10g) of the dried ore residue. While boron and vanadium in all the alkaline solutions were analyzed by using the Flame Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (FAAS), Unicam 969, England at their proper wave lengths. 2033 Vol. 3 Issue 3, March - 2014 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT) ISSN: 2278-0181 www.ijert.org IJERTV3IS031617 International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology (IJERT)