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ISL EXTRACTION AND PROCESSING

During ISL mining, water is pumped to the surface from production wells that contain uranium in very low concentrations, on the order of parts per million concentrations. The next step in the ISL process is to extract the uranium dicarbonate. Extraction is done by chemically exchanging ions inside a processing facility. “The ion exchange process is very analogous to a home Culligan® water softener,” Anthony revealed. “It removes hardness or calcium from the water by replacing it with sodium, using ion exchange resins. If you go to Lowe’s or Home Depot, and buy a water softener, you basically have a home version of a uranium extraction plant.” The main difference is your water softener will have a cation exchanger. “For a uranium plant to function properly, you need to use an anion exchange resin, which is specifically designed to load uranium,” Anthony clarified.

And what is this magical “ion exchange resin”? The resin is comprised of little polymer beads, which are charged particles having an affinity for uranium anions. “There are literally millions of these small resin beads in a vessel, which can adsorb low concentration of uranium in solution,” said Anthony. Adsorption is when something is attracted to something else or clings to it, like static electricity.

Why do you have to process uranium like this? “In essence, the ion exchange process is a beneficiation (reduction) process that concentrates large volumes of low concentrate uranium solution into a much smaller volume containing a much higher concentration of uranium,” said Anthony. In other words, the beneficiation is just concentrating the uranium from the large volume of water in which it is mined into a more compact form. The preferred means is through an ion exchange.

Anthony gave a real-life example of the beneficiation process, “Three million gallons of wellfield solution containing dilute concentrations of uranium, of 100 parts per million minus 0.10 grams/liter, is passed through a bed of ion exchange resin. This might take 24 hours to achieve if the solution is flowing at 2,500 gallons per minute. After this length of time, the resin becomes loaded with approximately 2,500 pounds of uranium.”

STRIPPING THE URANIUM

Stripping the uranium is called the elution process. This is done through a chemical exchange of positively and negatively charged ions. Resins are classified by the charge on the active sites. “The active sites on the resin are positively charged for anion resins and negatively charged for cation resins,” Norris enlightened us. “The resin’s ability to extract chemical ions from a solution is derived from what’s called an active site,” he continued. “In our case, chloride ions obtained from ordinary tale salt are used to stabilize or temporarily neutralize this positively charged active site.” The negatively charged chloride ion sticks to the positively charged site, held in place by what Norris called “electrostatic forces.” When the negatively charged ions, such as uranyl dicarbonate, are placed in contact with the solution, it will kick off the chloride and replace that with the uranyl dicarbonate.

That was the chemistry lesson. Anthony summed it up in a nutshell, “They just displace it. There’s a greater affinity for the chloride ion to the resin than there is for the uranium. So, the uranium is stripped from the resin bed.” The processing facility chemically strips the loaded uranium from the resin by soaking the entire package of uranium-laden resin in a salt bath solution. “The volume of salt solution is on the order of 10,000 gallons resulting in a solution concentration of 30 grams/liter uranium,” Anthony said, describing the process of how the uranium becomes concentrated. “The stripped uranium solution concentration is magnified 300 times more than the wellfield solution,” he informed us. “The concentration level can now be economically processed for recovery: precipitation, dewatering, drying and drumming for a nuclear facility.”

GETTING URANIUM INTO THE DRUM

After the uranium has been removed from the solution, it is precipitated. At this point in the processing stage, you have yellowcake slurry. Up close, it looks like a sort of yellowish and wet, runny cement mixture. The dewatering process does just that, it removes the water from the yellowcake mixture.

“I use a filter press, a device that is designed to separate solids from solutions,” explained Anthony. Filter presses are extensively used in various types of food, chemical and drug processing across the world. “The uranium solids, now looking more like yellowcake, are retained in the filter press, where they can be washed and later air dried, before drying them to a powder with a low temperature vacuum dryer,” said Anthony taking us step by step through this process.

So what is the filter press and how do you end up with the finished yellowcake when you’re done? “It’s a series of plates and hollow frames, or it could be a series of recessed chambers,” Anthony answered. “Filter cloth is draped over the plates or chalked in the recessed chambers. The yellowcake slurry is pumped through the filter allowing the liquid phase to pass through the filter cloth, trapping the uranium oxide inside the device.” Anthony likes to pack the filter press up with as much yellowcake as it can hold. “It is then washed with clean water to displace the chloride ions to a low level,” Anthony explained. If you don’t remove the chloride concentrations to the acceptable level required by an uranium enrichment facility, a fine is assessed against that shipment.

The final steps include conveying the yellowcake to the vacuum dryer. The uranium oxide’s color depends on how high or low a temperature is used to dry the “yellowcake.” Patrick Drummond, the Smith-Highland Ranch plant superintendent, showed us pure uranium oxide dried at high temperatures. It was nearly black. After the drying process is complete, the uranium is packaged up in DOE-approved 55 gallon drums and transported to an enrichment facility. It is then when the enriched uranium can finally be used to power a nuclear reactor and provide an inexpensive source of electricity.

James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publications. Get your free subscription and receive the latest articles by James Finch by visiting http://www.stockinterview.com Write to James Finch at jfinch@stockinterview.com. More information about Harry Anthony is available at http://www.hanthony.com

The bed frame is the most important part of building a bed. Most folks are not aware that their is a massive selection of bed frames. A quick search though and you are sure to have hundreds of styles, sizes and types to consider (see single, double & king bedframes). But just how do you selec the right bed? and does it really matter? There are some important considerations for this purchase, but overall, the needs and desires that you have also play a role in what you decide on. Often when you actually go searching you will fall in love with a bed. If you want to know how important selecting the right bed is, then it is crucial you read this article

How to find a quality bed

It doesnt matter what kind of bed you end up buying, just make sure it is quality. If you buy a metal bed frame, you need to know how much weight it can support. Don’t skimp out on the price as a poor quality metal frame can buckle, meaning you may be back shopping. But, if you purchase one that has quality to it, and possibly even a warranty of some type, you’ll be able to secure the frame that fills your needs as well as having the long lasting qualities that are quite important in a mattress and bed frame.W

Playing poker entails risk, which is why those who play regularly for real money must have a minimum level of confidence in their game. Poker celebrities sometimes take that confidence a little too far and betray themselves as ego maniacs with their temper tantrums at the table. But letting your ego drive your game is a sure way to throw your chips away.

In poker, ego gets in the way of logical decision-making and can prompt a player to call a bet instead of folding because the player does not want to be seen as weak. If folding is analogous to surrender, an aggressive player will make the crying call even though the hand is beat just to avoid the appearance of surrender. The result is that chips are sacrificed to the ego. Give up the ego, and keep your chips!

Ego can force players to seek revenge. A player may put a bad beat on you, and that compels a series of unjustified bets to get even. Once again, emotion and ego are clouding judgment and that can only lead to a diminished chip stack.

Sometimes players just get in too deep in poker games they can’t beat, but are reluctant to move down to a lower level. What follows is a busted bankroll. Again, this is ego talking and not common sense self-appraisal.

Bragging about your abilities at the poker table might make you feel good, but you are giving free information to your opponents. Be guarded about your strategies and poker knowledge. Remember, boastful over-confident players can drive weak amateurs away, and those are the fish you want to keep in the game.

Weight reduction is a challenge almost all fight with from time to time. Looking for the most bona fide diet or the most effective physical exercise regimen can last for a long time. Absent examination, it seems like the search is about looking physically fit to please others.

You will bend over backwards to impress “them,” correct? In order to be successful, happy, and pull your life partner, its required that you look satisfactory to them. Hmmmm.

Unfortunately, this is to some degree true, even so, looking fit (worthy) is in truth just about becoming in touch with your personal self-worth, accessing a greater worth that is not obtained from your appearance. “How to drop off fat” must not be the lone question you ask. You don’t have to give up on the quest to lose fat, but at least attempt putting this question along side of it: “How do I attain self-esteem and fitness on the inside, no matter how my body looks?”

Chances are you’re already asking such a question, in your subconcious.

As you are trying to get rid of your weight, the above question usually dwells beneath the quest you are on. Seeing as how it remains present anyway, I am suggesting you make it top of mind. Turn it into your central issue. Make self-acceptance simply as worthy in importance to . You may be pleasantly surprised.

When you make improved self-esteem the goal, together with a plan to lose weight, you open a door towards a much better you inside. You begin to understand that there are different ways to resolve this problem, aside from just diets and exercising. Moving towards true self-respect brings you to stare the problem right in its eyes. You then start to bring out the core group issues.

It is strongly advised you get assistance if many wounds are being exposed. There are many wonderful books and resources on weight loss, self-pride, body image, and true self-acceptance that will elevate you to new directions.

But the issue and its solution start with you. What I am trying to say is that the real job is not finding the best weight loss program, or what to eat, etc. the real problem is self-judgment. What else can it be?

You only feel bad when among others if you are looking at your self through judgmental eyes. When you take of your “glasses” of self-judgment, no matter how distressful it was, then you will have arrived at the source of the problem. You come out from that state by choosing to do so. You remove self-judgment about your body image or anything for that matter, by realizing how unproductive it is, and simultaneously finding paths to experience more self-esteem.