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Uranium leaching using citric acid and oxalic acid

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Abstract

Citric acid and oxalic acid, the main metabolites of fungi, have different leaching effects on uranium ore. Herein, uranium leaching from a volcano-litho-type uranium ore using citric acid and oxalic acid was studied by performing soaking experiments in incubator shakers using pure water and H2SO4 as controls. The citric acid is advantageous over oxalic acid in terms of the uranium leaching rate (97% and 67%) and speed for 20 days of leaching. These findings will help optimize the isolation and cultivation conditions of organic acid-producing fungi used for uranium leaching.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Dr. Li Peng (School of Water Resource and Environmental Engineering, East China University of Technology) for the helpful advice and State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Resources and Environment (Nanchang, China). The authors also thank the reviewers for their comments.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Fund, China [Grant Numbers: 41572231, 41662024, and U1608254]; the Science and Technology Research Project of Jiangxi Provincial Education Department, China [Grant Number: GJJ160563], Jiangxi Provincial Science and Technology Project [Grant Number: 20161BBH8005]; and State Key Laboratory of Comprehensive Utilization of Low-Grade Refractory Gold Ores, China [Grant Numbers: ZJKY2017(B)KFJJ01 and ZJKY2017(B)KFJJ02].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110819, China

    Lingling Xu & Hongying Yang

  2. School of Water Resource and Environmental Engineering, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, 330013, China

    Lingling Xu, Yajie Liu & Yipeng Zhou

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  1. Lingling Xu
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  2. Hongying Yang
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Correspondence to Hongying Yang.

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Xu, L., Yang, H., Liu, Y. et al. Uranium leaching using citric acid and oxalic acid. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 321, 815–822 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06673-9

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