HONEYMOON MINE AUSTRALIA: COMMISSIONING AND OPERATION OF THE PROCESS PLANT USING A NOVEL SOLVENT EXTRACTION REAGENT MIXTURE IN A HIGH CHLORIDE ENVIRONMENT

摘要

The Honeymoon Uranium Project is wholly owned by Uranium One Incorporated. The operation uses in-situ leaching to extract uranium from uranium-bearing sandstone aquifers underground and the resultant pregnant leach solution (PLS) is pumped to the surface for processing. Uranium is extracted from the PLS using a unique reagent suite in the solvent extraction (SX) circuit. After scrubbing and stripping, uranium is precipitated to a uranium peroxide product and dried for despatch.The PLS is targeted to contain about 50 - 70mg/L uranium with up to 10 g/L chloride and 0.5 g/L ferric iron. However, during the initial operations the PLS achieved ranged between 50 - 55 mg/L. The low uranium concentration coupled with the high chloride level and the presence of iron provide difficulties for a conventional SX reagent suite, thus requiring the development of a unique reagent blend of di-2-ethy! hexyl phosphoric acid, tertiary amine and tri-butyl phosphate. An iron removal process is installed after SX before uranium is precipitated as a hydrated uranium peroxide product.