Nuclear energy is a low carbon form of energy seen broadly as a means to reduce carbon emissions associated with energy generation. A number of uranium deposits around the world are amenable to extraction via in-situ recovery. Pregnant liquors produced from these deposits are commonly processed via ion exchange processes using commercially available resins.

The utility of process simulation for design and optimization of a uranium ion exchange plant is demonstrated in this work. A dynamic SysCAD model of an ion exchange loading, washing, and elution circuit is presented. Ion exchange is a sequential batch process circuit operating within an overall continuous process. As a result, significant surge tank capacity is required for operation of connected continuous circuits. This feature of uranium ion exchange plants makes dynamic analysis important for circuit design, optimization, and debottlenecking. The presented model uses open literature data as input to calculate circuit capacity and equipment utilization as a function of changes in operating conditions.

Dynamic models are also important for understanding impacts of equipment reliability and maintenance scheduling. By calculating equipment utilization, the criticality of various equipment in the process can be assessed. This is useful both for design, e.g. identifying where backup units are required, and operations, e.g. understanding the cost and benefits of maintenance schedules.

Presentation by Kevin Hepner of SysCAD. First presented at COM 2022, 21-24 August 2022: [ Ссылка ]

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Design | Operate | Optimise

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