KALIBO, Aklan — Department of Science and Technology (DOST) secretary Renato Solidum said he is awaiting further study results to determine whether uranium-bearing minerals in Camarines Norte could provide a usable resource.
His remarks followed a laboratory study by researchers from the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (PNRI), the University of the Philippines Diliman, and Japan’s Akita University that demonstrated a process for increasing the uranium concentration of material from Bessemer in Larap, Jose Panganiban, Camarines Norte.
“Finding Uranium in the Philippines is not new. What we are hopeful this time is the study aims to determine if the uraninite found in Camarines has enough source for it to be useful,” Solidum told reporters at Marzon Cafe here on Thursday, Oct. 1.
Solidum was in Aklan for the Regional Science and Technology Week in Western Visayas, which the province is hosting from Oct. 1 to 3.
In its report, PNRI said researchers confirmed that uraninite was the principal uranium-bearing mineral in the surface deposits examined.
The laboratory process increased the material’s uranium concentration from 244 parts per million (ppm) to 305 ppm, while recovering about 73% of its uranium in the final product.
The research used a combination of flotation and magnetic separation. Flotation recovered copper- and molybdenum-bearing sulfide minerals, while magnetic separation removed magnetite, an iron-rich magnetic mineral. Uranium became more concentrated in the remaining non-magnetic material.
Aside from uranium, the original sample contained 0.57% copper, 0.49% molybdenum, and 13.5% iron. The flotation stage recovered 76% of the copper and 79% of the molybdenum into a concentrate that could undergo further processing into marketable products, according to the published study.
The process is a preliminary concentration step that reduces the volume of material requiring subsequent treatment. Researchers said this could lower chemical consumption and potentially improve recovery in later processing stages.
The resulting material would still require leaching and purification to produce uranium concentrate, commonly known as “yellowcake,” an intermediate material used in the nuclear fuel cycle. The laboratory product is therefore still several processing steps away from potential use as nuclear fuel.
PNRI also stressed a limitation of the findings: while the study confirmed uranium mineralization at the surface and showed that the material could be upgraded, it did not determine how much uranium exists underground. The successful laboratory tests alone do not establish the size of a potentially usable resource.
