Abstract:
Anthropogenic 129I on surface environment mainly originates from three sources, including nuclear weapon tests, nuclear fuel reprocessing plants, nuclear accidents, with different pathway. This leads to 129I deposition history recorded in sediment is not the same in different regions. Due to its long half-life and high conservative feature in the ocean，129I has been used as an...
210Po is a natural radionuclide, which is present in the environment as a result of the decay of 238U and is characterized by high radiotoxicity and bioaccumulative behavior in certain tissues of living beings.
The main source of 210Po explaining its presence in different compartments of the environment is the exhalation of 222Rn from the ground and its subsequent decay in the atmosphere,...
The plutonium isotopes, 239Pu and 240Pu, have been added to the surface oceans mainly as a consequence of global fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing. There were two major sources of Pu isotope in seawater in the western North Pacific Ocean: global (stratospheric) fallout which occurred mainly in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and local fallout from the Pacific Proving Grounds...
Geological reference material is essential for analytical research and has been widely used for a chemical analysis to obtain accurate geochemical data. Also, it is useful to evaluate the accuracy and precision of the analysis, to develop and improve analytical techniques. Although there is a trend that demand for these geological reference materials is increasing but development of Korean...
Contamination of the aboveground parts of plants caused by root uptake and dust particles sedimentation on a surface of plant organs above the ground. The overall aim of the work is evaluate of foliar uptake of radionuclides in plants groves in areas with a high contamination density of soil by the radionuclides.
The studies were performed at the territory of Polessky State Radiation and...
Amidoximated mesoporous silica was prepared by grafting and co-condensation methods in this work, respectively. The materials were characterized by FTIR, SEM, XPS and physisorption apparatus. The effects of pH, adsorption time, initial uranium concentration, adsorbent amount and coexisting ions on uranium adsorption by amidoximated mesoporous silica were investigated. The experiment results...
On March 11, 2011, the Tohoku earthquake and the subsequent series of tsunamis severely damaged the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plants (FDNPPs). Failure of cooling systems led to explosions releasing radioactive gas and debris to the atmosphere along with cooling water that was directly discharged to the sea after being in contact with the nuclear fuel. The resulting release of 90Sr (T1/2...
Colloids existing in soils and groundwater aquifers can facilitate the transport of environmental contaminants including radionuclides as well as hydrophobic organic compounds. The mobility of colloids depends strongly on dispersion and aggregation of the particles. Therefore, the environmental fate and stability of colloidal bentonite particles under various conditions are crucial for...
Application of radioactive and stable isotopes to trace organic matter in the Baltic Sea
G. Lujanienė1, P.P. Povinec2, H.-C. Li3, K. Jokšas4, J. Mažeika4, N. Remeikaitė-Nikienė1,5, V. Malejevas1,6, G. Garnaga-Budrė5, L. Levinskaitė4, S. Šemčuk1, I. Kulakauskaitė1, R. Barisevičiūtė1, D. Bugailiškytė1, A. Stankevičius1,5
1SRI Center for Physical Sciences and Technology, Vilnius,...
The work presents data on the aerobic and anaerobic microbiological processes impact on Uranium migration in upper aquifers polluted with sulfate and nitrate ions near to sludge depository of Novosibirsk chemical concentrate plant. Sludge depository was built in 1960s and still works. Uranium concentration in subsurface water reaches in several zones 1-2 mg/L and its migration depends on some...
It is a well-known fact that a series of different nuclear sources associated with the nuclear weapon and fuel cycles have contributed to the release of radioactive particles to the environment. In particular, at local scale, and following nuclear weapon tests, it has been observed that a major fraction of released refractory radionuclides such as uranium (U) and plutonium (Pu) are present as...
Exposure to alpha, beta or gamma radiations from natural sources, which is varies by location and altitude, affect the living organism. The main sources are earth crust (83%) and cosmic (17), with annual exposure 2.0 mSv and 0.4 mSv, respectively. The objective of this study is to identify the radionuclide concentration in certain cities (Riyadh , Hagl and Khafji), of Saudi Arabia. The...
Traces of radioactive isotopes of ruthenium in the atmosphere were reported in the beginning of October 2017 by several European stations monitoring the airborne concentrations of gamma emitters (e.g., IRSN, 2017). As of February 2018, the source in Eastern Europe has not been publically identified. $^{106}$Ru is a fission product with a half-life of 371.5 days. It is used as a medical isotope...
The determination of the presence of artificial radionuclides in the air is mainly accomplished by using gamma spectrometry analysis of filter samples. This work suggests very fast, reliable and efficient technique for tentative quantitative determination of the activity of artificial nuclides such as transuranic elements, strontium, yttrium, etc. in the air based only on the gross alpha and...
At the very end of September and in October 2017 artificial radioactive isotope Ruthenium-106 has been detected in air over Europe. It was primarily found in Northern Italy and Central Europe. $^{106}$Ru was detected by means of aerosol sampling stations used in continuous monitoring of presence of radioactive isotopes in ground-level air. In Krakow, $^{106}$Ru was firstly detected on filter...
Radon is a rare gas element which has only radioactive isotopes. It is supposed to be an important and useful element because we could find anywhere on the earth and we might utilize for medical use in cancer therapy.
There are several measurements available such as an ionization chamber measurement and a track counter method. We can also measure the radon concentration in solution by using...
Air and food are the main sources of many chemical elements, also natural and artificial radionuclides transferred to human organisms. The intensity of radioisotopes intake depends on the place of residence, local radiation quantity, diet habits and food origin. So far, during annual radiation doses evaluations in Poland, the most often consumed food products were taken into account. Among...
After the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) accident in March 2011, a huge amount of radioactive cesium was released over a widespread area in eastern Japan. People were seriously concerned about food safety. Therefore, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare established a provisional regulatory value of 500 Bq/kg for radiocesium in cereals, vegetables, meat, and fishery products....
The practice of liquid radioactive waste (LRW) injection in deep stagnant aquifers in Russia dates back to 1963 year. The safety assessment and safe operation of existing LRW repositories require complex modeling of basic geochemical processes. Sorption onto mineral phases tends to be the main process affecting the dynamics of migration of radioactive and other contaminants in geological...
Crystalline rock is suitable the safety disposal of high-level radioactive waste (HLW). Fracture networks connections can dominate flow behaviors at the crystalline rock. In this study, advection-dispersion column experiments of cesium (Cs) through crushed granite (0.297 - 0.840 mm) were constructed where synthetic groundwater (GW) and seawater (SW) were employed as the liquid phase. This study...
The release of uranium from mine tailings may present a hazard to the environment, which is the reason for the monitoring of the relevant storage sites in many countries. Studying the behavior of released radionuclides at these sites serves to better estimate the local risk and can help to improve the understanding of the geochemistry of the involved contaminants, e.g. for the application in...
Polonium 210Po and radiolead 210Pb belong to the uranium series decay chain with half-lives of 138.376 days and 22.2 years respectively. They are relatively toxic to humans, especially α-emitting 210Po, both chemically and radiologically, and are accumulated to a considerable extent. The main sources of chemical elements intake are air and food but their intensities depend on living place,...
The concentrations factor of 14 heavy metals in marine organisms at the neighbouring sea of Korea were measured and investigated, respectively. The 359 seawater samples, 332 fish samples, 20 Cephalopods and 22 Crustaceans, 15 Molluscs, 38 Macroalgae were measured the concentrations of heavy metals. The concentration factors in 314, 22 sampling locations were analyzed in concentration of...
Accurately determined uranium isotope ratios are essential for geochronological dating and tracing of different environmental processes. In addition, they are of paramount importance for nuclear safeguards and nuclear forensics.
Multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) has become an important tool for determination of uranium isotope ratios in both liquid and...
Barra de Valizas – Aguas Dulces area is placed in the strip coast of the 290 Ramsar site, located in the eastern region of Uruguay, on its Atlantic coast. The studied area included two coastal towns and a freshwater lagoon.
The activity concentration of 238-U, 226-Ra, 210-Pb, 232-Th, 40-K and 137-Cs radionuclides in sand, soil and Baccharis articulata were evaluated. For the quantification...
The Iberian Pyrite Belt (South of Spain) is plenty of acid pit lakes as a result of former mining. These pit lakes are leaching some limited amounts of acid water into their close environment: acid mining drainages (AMD). But in 2017, an accident occurred in an abandoned mine called “La Zarza” and from the associated pit lake approximately 250,000 m3 of acid water were discharged into a small...
Artificial radionuclides and, first of all, the most dangerous isotopes of transuranium elements(TUE) became constant and irreversible components of the biosphere because of the experimental nuclear explosions performed, the wrong concept of the disposal of radioactive wastes to open water reservoirs, and also process upsets and emergency situations at NFC enterprises .
It is known that many...
Some aquatic ecosystems from Mexico, such as rivers and lagoons, are affected by wastes enriched with potentially toxic elements generated by precious metal mining activities. Contamination of water, sediment and affected biota has produced several environmental issues, including biological effects in some species of flora. On the other hand, mineral processing activities may also generate...
Results for, Cs-137, Pu and Th isotopes activity concentration found in the upper part of bottom sediments taken from a deep part of 29 lakes on Mazurian Lakes area (North-Eastern Poland). Samples were collected by diving. Results for 137Cs were obtained using low background gamma ray spectrometry, Pu-238, Pu-239+240, Th-230 and Th-232 were obtained by means of alpha spectrometry and those...
Polonium is a radioactive element present in many components of the marine and terrestrial environment. $^{210}Po$, the most abundant naturally occurring radioisotope of polonium, is one of the descendants of the uranium ($^{238}U$) decay series. Rocks, soil, water, sediment, and biota, contain traces of $^{210}Po$ in variable amounts. $^{210}Po$ may be radiotoxic to humans and non-human biota...
This study aimed to assess potential radiotoxicity to human consumers from 210Po and 210Pb accumulated in several species of mushrooms from the family Boletaceae that are traditionally collected in Poland and China. Fruitbodies of B. edulis were from the Yunnan province of China and from the northern part of Poland, and individuals of pine bolete Boletus pinophilus, summer cep Boletus...
Nuclear medicine involves the administration of I-131 to patients in order to treat or diagnose thyroid lesions. Commonly, it is administered orally in a liquid or capsule form. Once this radioisotope enters into the patient’s body, it is mainly excreted via urine and in this way it can reach wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) [1]. Consequently, radioiodine can be present in the different...
An investigation was carried out on the acid drainage (pH 3.96) of an old uranium mine (Quinta do Bispo mine, Portugal), containing activity concentrations of 61000±7300 mBq/L of 238U, 886±60 mBq/L of 226Ra and 504±27 mBq/L of 210Po, and relatively high mass concentrations of Ni, Al, Fe, Mn, and Zn. This mine water is treated with addition of BaCl2 and pH increase with addition of hydroxide,...
Fish is part of the food chain and actively involved in radionuclides migration processes. The investigations of real samples from radioactively contaminated water reservoirs were studied. The reservoir R-4 of the “Mayak” Production Association using as a low-level waste (LLW) storage and it is unique in the number and radionuclides composition. The study purpose was to establish the...
The aerosol particles accumulated during winter in the snow cover of the Novosibirsk vicinity are studied by the means of the gamma-ray spectrometry, ICP-MS, X-ray fluorescent analytical methods. These studies allowed revealing the contribution of separate industrial enterprises into the general technogenic pollution of the megapolis with uranium and thorium.
The work was supported by the...
One of the major pollutants in nuclear waste is 99Tc, a redox-sensitive fission product from 235U and 239Pu with a long half-life of 2.14 X 10 5 years. Under environmental oxidizing conditions, 99Tc mainly exists in aqueous solution as pertechnetate, TcO4-, which is a highly water-soluble ion that does not sorb...
Human lung ashes were collected in Vienna, Austria, during the early sixties of the last century in order to determine short-lived fission products from the nuclear test explosions by gamma-spectrometry (1). Later on in part of these samples also plutonium was determined by alpha-spectrometry (2).
Last year we started to investigate some of the remaining samples with regard to 236U (half-...
Radio-tellurium isotopes such as Te-127m and Te-129m were released into the environment as a result of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident. A large amount of Te-127m and Te-129m was released, and these isotopes have relatively long half-lives (109 and 33.6 days, respectively). As such, ingesting food harvested from the contaminated area shortly after the accident could...
Early we studied the sorption of microamounts of 60Co2+, 85,90Sr2+, 90Y3+, 131I–, 131IO3–, 137Cs+, and 233,238U(IV) onto layered double hydroxides (LDHs) of Mg, Cu, Al, and Nd, containing various anions in the interlayer space, and also onto layered double oxide (LDO) of Mg and Al, prepared by thermal decomposition of the corresponding LDH. It was found that LDH-Mg-Al-Anion (Anion = CO32–,...
Within the DGR project in the Czech Republic, the local Mg/Ca bentonite named BaM (Bentonite and Montmorillonite) has been tested with the aim to assess its sorption qualities with regard to cations necessary for the performance assessment of the repository.Sorption batch experiments present a tool to estimation of sorption coefficients which provide useful information on the transport...
Layered double hydroxides (LDHs) belonging to two-dimensional supramolecular systems are compounds of the composition [(M2+)1–x(M3+)x(OH)2]•[(An–)x/n•mH2O], where М2+ and М3+ are cations in oxidation states 2+ and 3+, respectively; An– is practically any anion or anionic complex. An advantage of LDHs over other layered compounds is the fact that various anions can be intercalated in their...
Ground water pollution by long living radionuclides can cause their introduction into subsurface environment and drinking water sources. Such actinides as uranium, neptunium, plutonium, americium and technetium as fission product are ones of the most important radionuclides in radioecological management because of their toxicity and long living. Their migration ability in environment depends...
One of the most important tasks of the nuclear industry is to develop effective liquid radioactive waste treatment technologies with the aim to minimize their amount and immobilizу for future safe storage. Various sorption materials are used to extract radionuclides from aqueous solutions. The products of oil shale processing can be the promising sorbents, as their mineral components are...
The objective of the presented research is to find a possible effect of living and/or working in places where the radon concentration exceeds the Czech guideline (reference) level of 300 Bq/m3. The first step was to determine 210Po concentration in urine samples from such people. Twenty-nine non-smokers volunteered to provide a urine sample excreted within 24 hours. They were asked to not...
THE ADSORPTIVE BEHAVIOUR OF HEAVY METALS ON MAGNETIC NANO-SORBENTS
I.Kulakauskaitė, G. Lujanienė, D. Valiulis
Center for physical sciences and technology, Savanorių ave. 231, LT-02300 Vilnius, Lithuania
ieva.kulakauskaite@gmailcom
Currently, water is one of the most vital human resources and is of the economic, social, political and environmental importance throughout the world. With the...
Forecast of engineering barriers evolution is an important problem of radioecology.
The goal of the following study is the development of complex methodology of modeling different processes, occurring during evolution of multibarrier system, and creating a uniform approach to safety analysis.
Methods of the description of the major factors, important for modeling multibarrier system (thermal...
The objectives of this research were to investigate the naturally occurring 234U and 238U in calcium and magnesium supplements, find the correlations between 234U and 238U concentration in medicament and its chemical form, as well as calculate the effective radiation dose connected to analyzed supplement consumption. The analyzed Ca and Mg pharmaceutics contained their organic or inorganic...
