Request for professional advice.

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zesty911

New member
Joined
Aug 3, 2023
Messages
3
Good day forum users.
I ask for advice.
1. Material - gray slag.
2. The handheld spectrometer shows the presence of elements, readings in the table.
3. It is impossible to do a complete spectral analysis for oxide and sulfate bonds, due to the problem - a high background radiation.
4. Treated the slag with sulfuric acid. Washed with water. The wet sediment showed little background radiation. After drying, the radiation background increased 10 times.
5. I ask for advice.
What are the possible processing options to separate the precious metals from the mother sludge. In the hope that radioactive material will remain in the waste sludge.
Thank you.
Best regards, Sergei
 
zesty911 said:
Good day forum users.
I ask for advice.
1. Material - gray slag.
2. The handheld spectrometer shows the presence of elements, readings in the table.
3. It is impossible to do a complete spectral analysis for oxide and sulfate bonds, due to the problem - a high background radiation.
4. Treated the slag with sulfuric acid. Washed with water. The wet sediment showed little background radiation. After drying, the radiation background increased 10 times.
5. I ask for advice.
What are the possible processing options to separate the precious metals from the mother sludge. In the hope that radioactive material will remain in the waste sludge.
Thank you.
Best regards, Sergei
Click to expand...
Welcome to us.
1 Grey slag tells us nothing without more information. Where do it come from and which processes it has been through.
2 XRF are very unreliable with respect to non metallic mixes like ores.
3 This one says STOP NOW!!!
Your terminology is off, background radiation is what is around us at all times. But you are saying your material is radioactive?? Then stop all processing now!!!
4 Read the previous. Why did you use Sulphuric acid on an more or less unknown sample that on top of this are radioactive???
The good thing is that it sounds like alpha radiation since water suppresses it.
There are quicker and more effective ways if committing suicide so please stop this!

First STOP all processing!!
Get a small sample and keep it wet at all times then get a full spectral analysis.

Most likely the XRF was “lying” by substituting some of the elements.

Make sure to have a proper medical check out informing on what you have done.
 
Yggdrasil said:
Welcome to us.
1 Grey slag tells us nothing without more information. Where do it come from and which processes it has been through.
2 XRF are very unreliable with respect to non metallic mixes like ores.
3 This one says STOP NOW!!!
Your terminology is off, background radiation is what is around us at all times. But you are saying your material is radioactive?? Then stop all processing now!!!
4 Read the previous. Why did you use Sulphuric acid on an more or less unknown sample that on top of this are radioactive???
The good thing is that it sounds like alpha radiation since water suppresses it.
There are quicker and more effective ways if committing suicide so please stop this!

First STOP all processing!!
Get a small sample and keep it wet at all times then get a full spectral analysis.

Most likely the XRF was “lying” by substituting some of the elements.

Make sure to have a proper medical check out informing on what you have done.
Click to expand...
Good time of day,
Thank you very much for your thorough answer.
Our main business is radioactive waste. We comply with all security measures.
There is a large amount of waste from the production of uranium ore processing, in which the company (our partner), which is engaged in the extraction of precious metals from waste, found gold and platinum group metals. But unfortunately, their leading chemistry specialist left for the EU. Waste management is an individual art.
In the waste, with gold, I picked up a way to remove the source of radiation contamination.
In waste, with platinum group metals, it is more difficult. I read a lot of literature. This is all good theory, for ideal conditions.
Therefore, I decided to turn to the professional community. Maybe someone knows a way how to separate platinum metals from the main impurities.
Ready to negotiate rewards.
Have a nice weekend everyone.
 
zesty911 said:
Good day forum users.
I ask for advice.
1. Material - gray slag.
2. The handheld spectrometer shows the presence of elements, readings in the table.
3. It is impossible to do a complete spectral analysis for oxide and sulfate bonds, due to the problem - a high background radiation.
4. Treated the slag with sulfuric acid. Washed with water. The wet sediment showed little background radiation. After drying, the radiation background increased 10 times.
5. I ask for advice.
What are the possible processing options to separate the precious metals from the mother sludge. In the hope that radioactive material will remain in the waste sludge.
Thank you.
Best regards, Sergei
Click to expand...
Those radioactive isotopes, have you characterized them well? There are resins that can help with retention.
 
This sounds like you have managed to obtain some extremely dangerous material.
I would like to know how.
To my knowledge, this would be amongst the most controlled substances possible worldwide.
Anyone who had the appropriate licensing to even transport such material let alone process it, would have to be very well informed on the subject.
Please look at how historically a very small amount of such material has managed to irradiate a very large number of people and contaminate large arias of land when improperly handled.
There have been a terrifying number of orphan sources killing people.
In theory, even what is considered refined gold would potentially still hold a considerable amount of contamination unless your process managed to yield gold of a stupidly high purity probably well above five nines.
And that is not even the overriding consideration, You will multiply the amount of radiologically contaminated waste possibly hundreds of times trying to extract a relatively small amount of value.
This would not be economical if you dealt with the waste in an appropriate manner as all such waste has to be stored on controlled dedicated sites until one of the deep geological repositories can be found to take it which will likely be another ten or twenty years at the very least.
One of my clients is one of the engineers at the Hinkley Point Nuclear Power Plant.
If you have the correct credentials I can ask him if he knows a specialist who might have some constructive suggestions that would be within recommended guidelines.
 
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Is it Cobalt 60 you dealing with here? or what is it? You better know what it is.

Must say i am curious about the amount of radiation.
 
Must say i get creeps of this type of questions. As i read it the person at the partner company, that did know what to do, ended his time at that company. Now the company that do not know what to do turn to GRF to solve the issue. Well safty is relative. In my way of thinking security measures include competent staff, that know how to handle the processes.

Yes, its probably very expensive to hire in knowledge, to solve the problem. Yes, you migth save a LOT of money by follow some strange advice from a stranger on this forum. But i have a hard time to see it would clomply with "all security messures". This is simply not the place for a responsible company, dealing with radioactive waste, to look for a awnser to their problem.

I know it might be something as simple as radon but I think we have some type of consensus about not put our fingers too deep into radioactive waste on this forum. A matter of common sense.

Edit: I also get a feeling that Sergei might sit in Ukraine. A country were no laws are followed to any major extent.
 
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stella polaris said:
Must say i get creeps of this type of questions. As i read it the person at the partner company, that did know what to do, ended his time at that company. Now the company that do not know what to do turn to GRF to solve the issue. Well safty is relative. In my way of thinking security measures include competent staff, that know how to handle the processes.

Yes, its probably very expensive to hire in knowledge, to solve the problem. Yes, you migth save a LOT of money by follow some strange advice from a stranger on this forum. But i have a hard time to see it would clomply with "all security messures". This is simply not the place for a responsible company, dealing with radioactive waste, to look for a awnser to their problem.

I know it might be something as simple as radon but I think we have some type of consensus about not put our fingers too deep into radioactive waste on this forum. A matter of common sense.
Click to expand...
Yes but a reading from a radiation scan may tell a lot.
If it is gamma radiation the things can get really scary and difficult.
 
Yggdrasil said:
Yes but a reading from a radiation scan may tell a lot.
If it is gamma radiation the things can get really scary and difficult.
Click to expand...
Agree. I am curious about what he have. But Sergei is not exactly following the path of a responsible company. He can as well sit in a shack outside Kiev and play with some material a gangsta gave him to toll refine.
 
zesty911 said:
Good day forum users.
I ask for advice.
1. Material - gray slag.
2. The handheld spectrometer shows the presence of elements, readings in the table.
3. It is impossible to do a complete spectral analysis for oxide and sulfate bonds, due to the problem - a high background radiation.
4. Treated the slag with sulfuric acid. Washed with water. The wet sediment showed little background radiation. After drying, the radiation background increased 10 times.
5. I ask for advice.
What are the possible processing options to separate the precious metals from the mother sludge. In the hope that radioactive material will remain in the waste sludge.
Thank you.
Best regards, Sergei
Click to expand...
Try Uranium/Plutonium Refining Forum. We deal mainly with precious metals, although what you have could be considered precious.
 
goldshark said:
Try Uranium/Plutonium Refining Forum. We deal mainly with precious metals, although what you have could be considered precious.
Click to expand...
It sounds like he has something to do with the company paid to store the waste from the production of yellow cake already.
It would have been much worse if they were recycling spent fuel instead of natural ore.
Also, when was the last time a gold refining company walked away from a good contract?
They normally are quite robust and stay even during the worse African uprisings.
I wonder why they withdrew so completely.
 
If this was material from uranium processing then someone good at minerals should be able to tell were the ore came from. The combination Uranium-Cobalt is not that common mineral. (exist in US at least according to Minedata. )The combination Uranium, Cobalt and Rhodium should be ever more scarce. It could be the arsen giving false PM readings. iI do not know.

Sergei have you done a stannious test?
 
justinhcase said:
trace isotope analysis is an interesting subject but very specialist.
I did not see any real expression or reference to a denomination of measurement just abstract numbers in the information that was provided.
Click to expand...
If he been working in a company handling radioactive waste he would know what part of the material that was radioactive and what isotope he was dealing with.. If it was the strontium he would have asked how to remove strontium. if the cobalt he would have asked about that. Now he seems not to know. A bad sign. Lets hope it was minor quantities he posses.
 
stella polaris said:
If he been working in a company handling radioactive waste he would know what part of the material that was radioactive and what isotope he was dealing with.. If it was the strontium he would have asked how to remove strontium. if the cobalt he would have asked about that. Now he seems not to know. A bad sign. Lets hope it was minor quantities he posses.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately during the time of the Soviet Union, the majority of uranium processing took place outside of what is now the Russian Federation.
The Russians simply evacuated anything of value they could and left the rest without telling those former states what they left behind.
So there is a huge amount of very dangerous materials littered around all the way from Ukraine to Kurdistan.
All of those now independent countries have tried to some extent recut people to mediate and manage this problem,
But this is hampered by corruption and a lack of technical know-how.
Let us hope for the sake of generations of their own people to come that this task has not fallen to someone who will make the situation much worse in the pursuit of profit.
https://bellona.org/news/nuclear-is...kraine-in-danger-of-russian-attacks-staff-say
 

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