An Approach to Reduce Load on the Acid Leaching Circuit of the Commercial Uranium Recovery Plant at Jaduguda, India

Abstract

The commercial uranium recovery plant at Jaduguda, Bihar, India, currently treats around 900 tonnes of ore per day from the Jaduguda mine, containing around 0.05% U₃O₈. Subsequent to removal of the sulphide minerals present in the ore by flotation, nearly 95% of the tailings are being treated in the acid leaching circuit to recover the uranium values. Laboratory investigations on the bulk flotation tailings revealed that around 63% of the uranium values are associated with feebly magnetic material of the tailings. The magnetic product obtained on wet high intensity magnetic separator gave rise to a product containing 0.1% U₃O₈. The rest of the uranium values were found to get enriched to 0.15% U₃O₈ in the –20 µm fraction of the non-magnetic material thereby giving scope to retrieve the uranium values by recovering the slimes. Necessary unit operations needed to be introduced in the plant flowsheet to reduce load on the acid leaching circuit of the commercial uranium recovery plant are discussed.