Nuclear power has rapidly become a cheaper, more reliable fuel source alternative to solve the world’s energy crisis. In order to meet future demands for nuclear fuel there has been increased interest in optimizing the extraction of uranium from its various minerals. One of the major uranium minerals used to produce nuclear fuel is tetravalent uraninite (UO₂). Various aspects of the extraction of uranium from this mineral are however poorly understood such as the influence of dopants (impurities) and gangue minerals found in the same ore deposits. In order to gain further knowledge on the effect of the aforementioned on the dissolution of uraninite, the various gangue minerals associated with uraninite need to be fully identified and characterized.
In this study three natural uraninite samples (Saxony in Germany, Palette mine in Northern territory and El Sharana mine in Northern territory) were characterized using a range of analytical techniques. The analytical methods used included standard X-ray diffraction (XRD), in-situ High temperature X-ray diffraction (HT-XRD), Scanning electron microscopy (ESEM) and Inductively Coupled plasma- mass spectrometer (ICP-MS). XRD results showed that the samples were all crystalline at room temperature. Furthermore, ICP-MS showed that all the samples contained high amounts of uranium. The identification and characterization of the minerals commonly associated with these “pure” uraninite samples facilitates the increase in knowledge of the gangue minerals present in natural ore and contributes significant data on possible approaches to removing these gangue minerals thereby increasing the amount of uranium extracted from the ore.