Abstracts and Available Papers Presented at the
1998 International RERTR Meeting

Recovery of Molybdenum using Alumina Microspheres and
Precipitation with Selective Organic Reagents

Fátima Maria Sequeira de Carvalho e Alcídio Abrão

Departamento de Engenharia Química e Ambiental
Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (IPEN/CNEN-SP)

e-mail: fatimamc@net.ipen.sp

ABSTRACT

In this paper is presented a study for the optimization of dissolution of the UAl_x plates used for irradiation and production of radiomolybdenum. The alloy is dissolved in nitric acid with mercury as catalyst. The separation and concentration of the molybdenum was achieved using a chromatographic grade alumina microspheres column. The purified eluted molybdenum is finally precipitated using one of the selective reagents: alizarine blue, a ,a ’-bypiridine and 1,10-phenanthroline. Any one of the obtained precipitate can be fired to the molybdenum trioxide. The interference of the following elements was studied: Re(VII), U(VI), Cr(VI), W(VI), V(V), Te(IV), Ti(IV), Zr(IV), Th(IV), Fe(III), Au(III),Ru(III), Al(III), Bi(III), Sb(III), Ce(IV),Pr(III), Sc(III),Y(III), Sm(III), Ba(II), Sr(II), Ni(II), Co(II), Cs(I). The molybdenum precipitates were characterized by gravimetric, CHN, TG, DTG, IR and X-ray diffraction analyses.