Abstract
Four different analytical techniques were compared for their performance in direct determination of uranium in seven rock samples. These methods include: ion chromatography, laser fluorimetry, UV–Vis spectrophotometry and gamma spectrometry. The samples under study were six ore samples beside an international reference sample (GBWO4115). The results obtained from the comparison study reported a method accuracy of 98%, 90%, 65% and 86% for ion chromatography, laser fluorimetry, UV–Vis spectrophotometry and gamma spectrometry techniques respectively. Also, on the converse of the other three techniques, ion chromatography technique using DX-500 ion chromatograph achieves superior agreement with the certified sample with only 2% bias.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Armstrong RC, Wolfram C, de Jong KP, Robert G, Lewis NS, Boardman B, Ragauskas AJ, Ehrhardt-Martinez K, Crabtree G (2016) The frontiers of energy. nature. Energy 1:15020
Weart SR (2012) The rise of nuclear fear. Harvard University Press, Cambridge
Skoog DA, West DM, Holler FJ, Crouch SR, Stanley R (2007) Principles of instrumental analysis. Brooks/Cole, Thomson, Belmont
Onishi H (1989) Photometric determination of traces of metals: part IIB—individual metals, magnesium to zirconium, 4th edn. Wiley, New York
Vasconcellos MBA, Armelin MJA, Fulfaro R, Lima FW (1980) A comparative study of some methods for the determination of uranium used at the Instituto De Pesquisas Energéticas E Nucleares. Brazilian Congress of Chemistry
Madbouly M, Nassef MH, Diab AM, El-Mongy SA (2009) A comparative analysis of uranium ore using laser fluorimetric and gamma spectrometry techniques. J Nucl Radiat Phys 4:75–81
Tosheva Z, Stoyanova K, Nikolchev L (2004) Comparison of different methods for uranium determination in water. J Environ Radioact 72:47–55
Tuovinen H, Vesterbacka D, Pohjolainen E, Read D, Solatie D, Lehto J (2015) A comparison of analytical methods for determining uranium and thorium in ores and mill tailings. J Geochem Explor 148:174–180
Ahmed SH (2018) Separation and determination of thorium in uranium mineralizations using a mixed ion exchange column by ion chromatography. Nucl Sci Sci J 7:159–170
Premadas A, Srivastava PK (1999) Rapid laser fluorometric method for the determination of uranium in soil, ultrabasic rock, plant ash, coal fly ash and red mud samples. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 242:23–27
Robbins J, Nargolwalla S, Siegel HO, Baird JG (1979) On-stream uranium analytical techniques. Appl Brief 79(3)
Kaste JM, Bostick BC, Heimsath AM (2006) Determining 234Th and 238U in rocks, soils, and sediments via the doublet gamma at 92.5 keV. Analyst 131:757–763
Guirguis LA, Salim AK (2015) Comparison of different methods for uranium determination in uranium-bearing ores. Isot Radiat Res 47:341–352
Khattab MR, Tuovinen H, Lehto J, El Assay IE, El Feky MG, Abd El-Rahman MA (2016) Determination of uranium in egyptian graniteic ore by gamma, alpha, and mass spectrometry. Instrum Sci Technol 45:338–348
Mohamed NA (1996) Distribution and extraction of uranium and some trace elements from the mineralized zones of El-Missikat-El-Eredya area, Eastern Desert, Egypt. Ph.D., Cairo University, Egypt
Amer TE, IbrahimTM, Omar SA (2005) Micro-probe studies and some rare metals recovery from El Missikat mineralized shear zone Eastern Desert, Egypt. In: The 4th international conference on the geology of Africa on the geology of Africa, Assiut-Egypt, vol 2, pp 225–238
Ibrahim TM (2002) Geologic and radioactive studies of the basement-sedimentary contact in the area west Gabal El Missikat, Eastern Desert. Egypt. Ph.D. thesis, Mansoura University, El Mansoura, Egypt
Nagar MS, Shahin HA, Bahige M (2016) Column percolation leaching of uranium from El-Sela Area, South Eastern Desert, Egypt. J Chem 5(4)
Ahmed SH (2009) Ion chromatographic separation and quantification of rare earth metals distribution in some geological materials. Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt
Ibrahim ME, El Tokhi MM, Saleh GM, Rashed MA (2006) Lamprophyre bearing-REEs, South Eastern Desert, Egypt. In: The 7th international conference on geochemistry, Alexandria University, Egypt
Ibrahim ME, Saleh GM, Hassan MA, El-Tokhi MM, Rashed MA (2007) Geochemistry of lamprophyres bearing uranium mineralization, Abu Rusheid area, South Eastern Desert, Egypt. In: The 10th international mining, petroleum, and metallurgical engineering conference, Egypt
Elmaadawy KG, Ezz El Din M, Khalid AM, Abouzeid AZM (2015) Mineral industry in Egypt—part II non-metallic commodities phosphate rocks. J Min World Express 4:1–18
Sayyah TA, El Shatoury HM (1991) Uranium resources and reserves in Egypt. Assessment of uranium resources and supply-IAEA,VIENNA, IAEA-TECDOC-597, ISSN 1011-4289
Harraz HZ (2016) Phosphate ore deposits. Presentation, Cairo, Egypt
Veiga M, Sanches N, Anjos RM, MacarioK Bastos J, Iguatemy M, Aguiar JG, Santos AMA, Mosquera B, Carvalho C, Baptista M, Umisedo NK (2006) Measurement of natural radioactivity in Brazilian beach sands. Radiat Meas 41:189–196
Salim AK (2013) Determination of natural uranium isotopes in granitic rocks using destructive and nondestructive techniques. Ph.D. thesis, Faculty of Science Zagazig University, Cairo, Egypt
Marczenko Z (1976) Spectrophotometric determination of elements. Ellis Horwood Ltd., Halsted Press, New York
Guirguis LA, Shohaib RE, Farag NM, Helmy SM, Salim AK (2014) A developed spectrophotometric method for accurate uranium determination in Granit. Bulletin of Faculty of Sciences, Zagazig University
Hussein GM, Muhammad SS, Gomaa NA, Shehata MR, Hosny WM (2016) A study on the extraction of uranium(VI) from sulphate leach liquor using LIX63. J Dispers Sci Technol. https://doi.org/10.1080/01932691.2016.1214837
De Felice ChP, Fazio A, Pasquale V, Verdoya M (2000) Laboratory application of NaI(Tl) g-ray spectrometry to studies of natural radioactivity in geophysics. Appl Rad Iso 53:127–132
Reddy A, Rao N (1995) Determination of uranium, thorium and potassium in rock and soil samples using low-energy gamma ray spectrometry. Terra Nova 7:321–326
Ketcham R (1996) An improved method for determination of beat production with g-ray scintillation spectrometry. Chem Geo 130:175–194
Tarafder PK, Ghosh PK, Pradhan SK (2017) A novel approach for trace to percentage level determination of uranium in rocks, soils and stream sediments by laser induced fluorimetry (LIF). J Radioanal Nucl Chem 313:353–360
Michalski R (2010) In: Cazes J (ed) Detection in ion chromatography in encyclopedia of chroma-tography, vol 1, 3rd edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 576–580
Jackson PE (2000) Ion chromatography in environmental analysis. In: Meyers RA (ed) Encyclopedia of analytical chemistry. Wiley, Chichester, pp 2779–2801
Michalski R (2010) Sample preparation for ion chromatography. In: Cazes J (ed) Encyclopedia of chromatography, vol 3. CRC Press, Boca Raton, pp 2106–2110
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
El Gammal, E.M., Ahmed, S.H. Comparison of four analytical techniques for determining uranium in different rock samples. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 322, 1975–1982 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06911-0
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-019-06911-0