Application of the produced microbial citric acid as a leachate for uranium from El-Sebaiya phosphate rock

Abstract

Increasing uranium exhaustion of the classical uranium ores in the last century as well as the urgent need for discovering clean nuclear energy would recently reorient research attention toward the nonconventional resources. The latter include mainly phosphate ore. This work is design to produce of citric acid by Aspergillus niger via optimization of the nutritional parameters. The medium used was supplemented with different concentrations of sucrose. It was found that sucrose (60 g/l) at pH of 3 to yield about 44.16(%) citric acid. The work is then successive to recover uranium from El-Sebaiya phosphate rock through its bioleaching which adopts on the citric acid produced from the A. niger metabolism extractant. The impure precipitate of bioleach liquor was purified via Amberlite I.R.A-400 anion exchanger resin and a marketable product of ammonium diuranate was prepared