A Zaheri - Department of Nuclear Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran
A Moheb - Department of Chemical Engineering, Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan ۸۴۱۵۶-۸۳۱۱۱, Iran
A.R Keshtkar - Nuclear Science Research school, Nuclear Science and Technology Research Institute
A.S Shirani - Department of Nuclear Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Uranium is a toxic and radioactive heavy metal, found in nuclear effluents that should be treated by considering economic and environmental aspects. Electrodialysis (ED) is one of the most efficient membrane processes that use electricity as driving force for separation. In this study uranium separation from synthetic effluents by ED was investigated. Taguchi method was used to plan a minimum number of experiments. A L9 array (three factors in three levels) was employed to evaluate effect of flowrate (5, 15, 30 ml/min), voltage (10, 20, 30) and feed concentration (200, 500, 1000 ppm) on performance of uranium separation from the wastewaters. ANOVA method was used to evaluate relative effect of each factor. It was found that increasing voltage and decreasing flowrate improves performance and initial concentration dose not affect it considerably. Flowrate had more effect than voltage. In line with the results electrodialysis was found to be very effective for uranium removal from wastewaters.

ANOVA, Electrodialysis, Membrane, Taguchi, Uranium