| Summary: | This study focused on the leaching of uranium and thorium from a high grade Ethiopian
tantalite ore using sulfuric acid. The effects of variables such as acid concentration, temperature and
leaching time were studied. In general, the leaching efficiency of uranium increases with increasing
temperature from 100 to 300 °C whereas the opposite trend was observed for thorium. The amount of
uranium leached increased from 69.1% at contact time of 1 hr to 88.6% when the tantalite ore was
leached for 3 hrs. On the other hand, for the experiments conditions considered in this study, the
leaching behavior of uranium and thorium did not change significantly with varying sulphuric acid
concentration from 70 to 90 wt%. Overall, the highest dissolution of uranium and thorium were
achieved at 100 °C, 70 wt% H2SO4 concentration and 1 hr contact time.
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