Effects of pH and uranium concentration on the removal of uranium from drinking water by ion exchange

Abstract

Effects of pH in the range of 5 to 8 and uranium concentration in the range of 0.02 mg/l to 25 mg/l on the removal of uranium with a strong base anion exchange resin (SBA) and a chelating aminophosphonate resin were studied. The results of the batch and column mode experiments clearly showed that the aminophosphonate resin was an efficient exchanger for the removal of uranium at pH values close to 5 and the SBA resin at higher pH values. In the column experiments, where altogether 2000 bed volumes of drinking water simulant were processed with these exchangers, the uptake of uranium was as high as 99.8% by the aminophosphonate resin at pH 5 and 99.7% by the SBA resin at pH 8.