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AssigneesHerman C. Starck Berlin, Uranerzbergbau-GmbH
InventorsWilfried Floeter, Gerhard Schoening, Klaus Schroeer
Estimating the term…
A process for recovering one or more non-radioactive transition metal compounds from an ore containing one or more compounds of said transition metal or metals and further containing at least one complex of a member selected from the group consisting of uranium, thorium, radium, titanium, and rare earth metals, which comprises decomposing said ore in crushed condition by means of an acid so that a portion of the ore is brought into solution in a liquid phase and another portion of the ore remains in a solid phase, said compound or compounds of the transition metal or metals to be recovered passing into only the liquid or into only the solid phase, the uranium in the crushed ore being treated so as to cause substantially all of said uranium to be present in an oxidation state in which it cannot, during the decomposition step, pass into the phase containing the transition metal compound or compounds.
A process for recovering tantalum and/or niobium metal compounds substantially free of radioactive contamination from an ore containing one or more compounds of said metal or metals and further containing at least one complex of a member selected from the group consisting of uranium, thorium, radium, titanium, and rare earth metals, wherein the crushed ore is first decomposed with hydrofluoric acid at an elevated temperature for more than three hours with substantially all the uranium, thorium, and radium compounds remaining in the residue, and substantially all the tantalum and/or niobium being dissolved as complexes with fluoride, and subsequently said hydrofluoric solution is further treated in an appropriate manner to recover niobium and/or tantalum compounds in said ore.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.