Pilot-scale removal of uranium from uranium plant wastewater using industrial iron powder in the ultrasonic field

Abstract Uranium removal from uranium wastewater has been successfully carried out on a laboratory scale. However, increasing uranium removal with industrial iron powder is not an easy task, and attempts to do so have reportedly not been entirely successful. To improve uranium removal efficiency from uranium wastewater produced by actual uranium plant, uranium removal using industrial iron powder in a pilot-scale ultrasonic reactor was studied in this paper. A pilot-scale system was designed, built, and operated based on the process of removal of uranium from the uranium-containing wastewater produced in actual uranium plant by employing industrial iron powder in the ultrasonic field. All of the incoming and outgoing process streams were sampled, tested and recorded to calculate the process uranium removal efficiency. The results showed that ultrasonic technique could be applied as an effective way to remove uranium. Uranium plant wastewater with an uranium content of 300 μg/L was mixed with the uranium raffinate with uranium content of 10 mg/L to reach pH of 3.28. 1 kg of industrial iron powder was added to each cubic meter of uranium plant wastewater, the uranium concentration dropped to 8.9 μg/L with 6 min ultrasonic. This was extremely beneficial to the environment and realized the water cycle.