Treatment of uranium‐contaminated waters using organic‐based permeable reactive barriers

Abstract

A literature review and screening study suggest the feasibility of using lowcost organic materials within a permeable reactive barrier (PRB)

Characterization and remediation of soils contaminated with uranium

“…The PRBs contain a zone of reactive material that is designed to act as an in situ treatment zone for specific contaminants as groundwater flows through it [248][249][250]. The feasibility of using low-cost organic materials within a permeable reactive barrier to treat uranium contaminated environmental components was also investigated, because a permeable reactive barrier is considered an innovative, green engineering approach used for soil and groundwater remediation.…”

“…The feasibility of using low-cost organic materials within a permeable reactive barrier to treat uranium contaminated environmental components was also investigated, because a permeable reactive barrier is considered an innovative, green engineering approach used for soil and groundwater remediation. The results showed that it has a high potential to threat shallow aquifer at a lower cost than pump-and-treat methods, but its cost-effectiveness has not yet been proven, due to a lack of long-term data [249][250][251][252][253]. Schad and Gratwohl [253] have calculated that the cost of remediation using PRB is 50% less than the pump-and-treat technique, while human exposure is reduced.…”

“…Various biosorbents were applied for uranium biosorption directly from soil or after it was transferred in water [321]. Also, large efforts have been concentrated especially on studying the uranium sorption by different microorganisms such as bacteria [250,[322][323][324][325][326][327][328], actinomycetes [328,329], fungi [330][331][332], yeasts [332] or algae [333][334][335].…”

“…Results of a literature review and the cation exchange capacity measurements performed by England [250] suggest that other organic materials, such as peat, can be used to remove soluble uranium from contaminated water. Natural peat deposits remove and sequester uranium from soils and groundwater under certain geochemical conditions while several species of bacteria, including Desulfovibrio desulfuricans precipitate soluble uranium from solution [250].…”

“…Natural peat deposits remove and sequester uranium from soils and groundwater under certain geochemical conditions while several species of bacteria, including Desulfovibrio desulfuricans precipitate soluble uranium from solution [250]. Some factors which influence the biosorption performance were also investigated [324,333,336], such as:…”