Radium surface water

Benes P (1990) Radium in (continental) surface water. In The environmental behavior of radium. Vol. 1. Inti Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, p373-418... 

Havlik B, Grafova J, Nycova B. 1968a. Radium-226 liberation from uranium ore processing mill waste solids and uranium rocks into surface streams -1 The effect of different pH of surface waters. Health Phys 14 417-422. 

Sebesta F, Benes P, Sedlacek J, et al. 1981. Behavior of radium and barium in a system including uranium mine waste waters and adjacent surface waters. Environ Sci Technol 15 71-75. 

Unauthorized landfill disposal of uranium processing wastes (e.g., Shpack Landfill in Norton, Massachusetts, and the Middlesex Municipal Landfill in Middlesex, New Jersey) has resulted in soil contamination (Bechtel National 1984 Cottrell et al. 1981). Also, elevated uranium concentrations have been measured in soil samples collected at 30 of 51 hazardous waste sites and in sediment samples at 16 of 51 hazardous waste sites (HazDat 1998). The HazDat data includes both Superfund and NPL sites. Elevated concentrations of uranium have been detected in soil, in surface water, in groundwater, or in all three of these environmental media from these sites. In several cases, the uranium concentrations in soils were significantly elevated. For example, uranium concentrations from the Shpack/ALI site were found to be 16,460 pCi/g (24,000 pg/g). At the United States Radium Corporation site (New Jersey), uranium concentrahons ranged from 90 to 12,000 pCi/g (130-18,000 pg/g) for the Monticello site (Utah), uranium levels were reported to range from 1 to 24,000 pCi/g (1.5-36,000 pg/g) (HazDat 1998). 

In some cases, technology helps to reduce the natural radiation exposure. For example, when drinking water supplies are drawn from surface waters, the use of water-purification processes brings about a decrease in the concentration of radium and other naturally occurring radioactive elements. Another example is the burning of fossil fuel, which reduces the specific activity of C in the biosphere and therefore lowers the doses from those radionuclides. 

In this equation A222 and A226 are shorthand notation for the activities of Rn and Ra, respectively, and AI22 is the radon activity in the well-mixed surface waters of the ocean. If activity profiles of radon and radium are determined, the only remaining unknown in Eq. (10.26) is the mass transfer coefficient, Crh. 

Other applications of NF membrane include organics removal from surface water, radium removal from ground water, sulfate removal from seawater, and food and pharmaceutical applications such as concentration of dilute solutions and desalting of cheese whey. 

Radon is a product of the natural radioactive decay of uranium, which occurs naturally in the earth s crust, to radium and then to radon. As radium decays, radon is formed and is released into small air or water-containing pores between soil and rock particles. If this occurs near the soil surface, the radon may be released to ambient air. Radon may also be released into groundwater. If this groundwater reaches the surface, most of the radon gas will quickly be released to ambient air, but small amounts may remain in the water. By far, the major source of radon is its formation in and release from soil and groundwater, with soil contributing the greater amount. Smaller amounts of radon are released from the near surface water of oceans, tailings from mines (particularly uranium... 

The amount of radon released to groundwater is a function of the chemical concentration of radium-226 in the surrounding soil or rock and in the water itself. High radon activity is associated with groundwater surrounded by granitic rock. The physical characteristics of the rock matrix are important also since it is believed that much of the radon released diffuses along microcrystalline imperfections in the rock matrix (Hess et al. 1985). Radon is rarely found in surface water due to the fact that it is rapidly released to the air when the water reaches surface levels (Michel 1987). 

Recently, Smith et al. [47] demonstrated the use of solid-phase extraction disks for the determination of radiostrontium Tc, and radium in surface water, ground-... 

---