The Issue of Separation of Uranium from Drinking Water in the Czech Republic

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F46356088%3A_____%2F13%3AN0000004" target="_blank" >RIV/46356088:_____/13:N0000004 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

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DOI - Digital Object Identifier

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Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Issue of Separation of Uranium from Drinking Water in the Czech Republic

Original language description

Natural ground water used for the preparation of drinking water contains a number of cations, anions, elements and other substances depending on the bedrock composition (Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, heavy metals, radioactive elements, arsenic, chromium, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, silicates, fulvic and humic acids etc.). Information about composition of drinking water is important to comply with all the requirements on sanitary of drinking water. The elements that affect the quality of drinking water mainly from groundwater, also includes radioactive elements contained in bedrock sections where water is extracted. These are the elements with long half-lives, mainly alpha emitters (U, Ra, Rn, Th, and elements of the decay series). Uranium and its decay products are found in all environmental compartments. Radionuclides come to the environment both naturally - weathering and leaching of the rocks, and as a consequence of human activities in connection with the use of raw materials. Uranium occurs naturally in four oxidation states. The most mobility has hexa-valent state (uranyl ion). Uranyl is highly soluble form of uranium in water. Mobility of uranium in soil and water is affected by many factors. Complex processes in soil and rock lead to redox reactions forming both insoluble compounds (lower valence forms of uranium) and soluble form of U (VI) (forming by reoxidation), which is again leachable into groundwater. At present the issue associated with removing uranium from drinking water is solved in the Czech Republic. New limit for the concentration of natural uranium (234U, 235U and 238U) was recommended as the highest limit based on the World Health Organization (WHO). Change the limit leaded to solving the issue on the waterworks in the Czech Republic, which had not any experiences with radioactivity. Some waterworks installed a new device from Germany (ion exchanges), but did not solve what they do with saturated ion exchanges. Ion exchanges as the most suitable material for removing of uranium from drinking water is not reused (without regeneration), but it is used in the uranium industry, where is putted to start of processing of uranium ore. Ion exchanges are replaced with a new one in the waterworks and saturated ion exchanges are discarded in the uranium industry. Regeneration of ion exchanges could be cheaper, because ion exchanges could be reused and processing of ion exchangers could be cheaper, because it is possible to put the regenerant before the process of precipitation of “yellow cake” in the processing of uranium ore. Presented at APSORC’13 - 5th Asia-Pacific Symposium on Radiochemistry, Kanazawa, Japan, 22-27 September 2013

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

O - Miscellaneous

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

20701 - Environmental and geological engineering, geotechnics

Project

<a href="/en/project/TA02010044" target="_blank" >TA02010044: Increasing of the Effectiveness of the System for Cleaning of Drinking Water Sources Contaminated by the Uranium in the Concentrations above the Treshold (Regeneration Site for Radioactively Contaminated Sorbents)</a><br>

Continuities

P - Projekt vyzkumu a vyvoje financovany z verejnych zdroju (s odkazem do CEP)

Publication year

2013

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů