Baurzhan Duisebayev 
Science director
Chemical Engineering Design Bureau
He began his scientific career at the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute, Russia, in 1982. He defended his PhD dissertation there in 1985, focusing on fluorine production.
From 1986 to 1999, he worked at the Institutes of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan, where he developed new technologies for the extraction of rare metal ores. He defended his doctoral dissertation in 1997 at the Irkutsk Polytechnic Institute, Russia.
From 2000 to 2018, he worked at the state-owned uranium company Kazatomprom, where he managed scientific and educational programs for the development of Kazakhstan's uranium industry.
Since 2018, he has worked as a scientific director for research projects in private and public companies on the transfer of technologies from the uranium industry for the extraction and processing of various metals – tungsten, titanium, nickel, rare earth elements, etc.
Creation of a closed chemical cycle for uranium mining through the regeneration of sulfuric acid from depleted solutions
The functioning of Kazakhstan's uranium industry is critically dependent on a stable supply of sulfuric acid to mines. The exponential growth in demand for it in the 2000s forced Kazatomprom to switch to providing acid mostly through the creation of its own sulfuric acid plants.
The increase in acid consumption in related industries (mining of phosphates, copper, and nickel) poses an even more complex challenge for the company: in the future, it will switch primarily to its own regenerated sulfuric acid.
We have been working on this topic since 2013. By now, we have accumulated sufficient scientific knowledge to begin practical development of a technology for regenerating sulfuric acid from uranium mine wastewater. The technology involves the conversion of sulfate salts into calcium carbonate and ammonium sulfate, from which sulfuric acid is then regenerated using one of the existing methods.
Given the importance of this issue for the nuclear industry worldwide, the authors invite interested investors and partners to collaborate.