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Separation of thorium from uranium ore

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Abstract

Thorium-230 has many research applications, but there is not a commercial source of this isotope. However, since 230Th is part of the 238U decay chain, it can be separated from naturally occurring uranium. In this work, a novel procedure was developed to separate thorium from uranium ore, consisting of leaching, liquid–liquid extraction, precipitations and ion exchange chromatography. The final product was 91.32 ± 0.77 mg of thorium with a purity of 99.5 ± 1.2 wt%. Of that, 7.65 ± 0.10 mg was 230Th and the remainder 232Th. The total yield of 230Th was 71.1 ± 5.4%. Ways to improve the yield by further processing the back-extraction solution are suggested.

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Acknowledgements

This study was performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344. This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration through the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium under Award Number DE-NA0003180. The authors would like to thank Rachel Lindvall for making all mass spectrometry measurements and for providing the uranium ore, as well as Keenan J Thomas and the Nuclear Counting Facility at LLNL for their expertise with the counting systems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nuclear Engineering Department, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Kelly N. Kmak & Jasmina Vujic

  2. Nuclear and Chemical Sciences Division, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA

    Dawn A. Shaughnessy

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  1. Kelly N. Kmak
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  2. Dawn A. Shaughnessy
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  3. Jasmina Vujic
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Correspondence to Kelly N. Kmak.

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Kmak, K.N., Shaughnessy, D.A. & Vujic, J. Separation of thorium from uranium ore. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 323, 931–945 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06980-1

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