• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2012

This study was carried out to remove (/recover) the uranium from the Uranium-bearing Lime Precipitate (ULP). An oxidative dissolution of ULP with carbonate-acidified precipitation and a dissolution of ULP with nitric acid-hydrogen peroxide precipitation were discussed, respectively. In point of view the dissolution of uranium in ULP, nitric acid dissolution which could dissolved more than 98% of uranium was more effective than carbonate dissolution. However, in this case, uranium was dissolved together with a large amount of impurities such as Al, Ca, Fe, Mg, Si, etc. and some impurities were also co-precipitated with uranium during a hydrogen peroxide precipitation. On the other hand, in the case of carbonate dissolution-acidified precipitation, U was dissolved less than 90%. Therefore, it was less effective than nitric acid dissolution for the volume reduction of radioactive solid waste. However, it was very effective to recover the pure uranium, because impurities were hardly dissolved and hardly co-precipitated with uranium.

• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.83-90
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• 2011

Removal of dissolved uranium by D. baculatum, a sulfate-reducing bacterium, and effects of trace metals such as manganese, copper, nickel, and cobalt were investigated. Total concentrations of dissolved uranium and trace metals were used by $50\;{\mu}M$ and $200\;{\mu}M$, respectively. Most dissolved uranium decreased up to a non-detectable level (< 10 ppb) MS during the experiments. Most of the heavy metals did nearly not affect the bioremoval rates and amounts of uranium, but copper restrained microbial activity. However, it is found that dissolved uranium rapidly decreased after 2 weeks, showing that the bacteria can overcome the copper toxicity and remove the uranium. It is observed that nickel and cobalt were readily coprecipitated with biogenic mackinawite.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.179-186
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• 2006

Chemical wastes are generated from nuclear facilities and R&D laboratories, but the uranium concentration in the final dried cake is evaluated into 11.2 Bq/g, which exceeds the exemption level of 10 Bq/g for each U isotopes, so the cake is categorized into a radioactive waste. Acid dissolution was applied to extract uranium from the waste sludge, and uranium adsorption on the dissolved solution was experimented by using IRN-77 and Diphosil bead. A large amount of resin was required to get above 80% of uranium removal, which was found to be due to a large amount of metal ions simultaneously dissolved from the precipitates with uranium. As an alternative method, acid dissolution is applied to the dewatered wet cake of the sludge, and the natural evaporation method is adopted for the dissolved solution. The uranium concentration of the dissolved solution was estimated to be 6.97E-01 Bq/ml, and the specific activity of the final waste sheets is evaluated to be 4.3 Bq/g. These results lead to the suggestion that the application of acid dissolution to the wet cake and the natural evaporation for the dissolved solution is an effective treatment method for chemical wastes containing uranium.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.347-352
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• 2005

This research was focused on the distribution of Uranium-238 concentration in the Han River. Also, six water treatment plants in Seoul have been investigated to find out the behaviour and the removal capability of uranium. The uranium concentrations were ranged $0.02{\sim}0.54{\mu}g/L$ in the Han River. The relationship between conductivity and total dissolved solids shows that uranium concentration is positively related with conductivity and total dissolved solids. In addition, it has been founded that there was no relevance between uranium concentration and geological structure, because most of the sampling area are Banded Gneiss. The average uranium concentration in six water treatment plants was determined to $0.134\;{\mu}g/L$ in raw water, $0.050\;{\mu}g/L$ in coagulated water, $0.029\;{\mu}g/L$ in settled water, $0.020\;{\mu}g/L$ in filtered water, $0.019\;{\mu}g/L$ in finished water. After filtration in the treatment process, uranium concentration level was maintained lower than $0.029\;{\mu}g/L$. The average uranium removal efficiency compared to the raw water was 63% after coagulation, 15% after sedimentation, 8% after filtration and disinfection. The analysis shows that 78% of uranium in the raw water was removed during coagulation and sedimentation processes. However, 8% of that was removed through filtration and chlorination processes.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.33-38
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• 2009

An experiment for uranium sorption onto fresh and weathered biotites was performed. After centrifugation, concentrations of uranium in the supernatants were analyzed using ICP-MS, and biotite samples were investigated using XRD and SEM. With powdered biotites (<3 mm in size), we have conducted uranium sorption experiments about fresh and weathered biotites to obtain uranium sorption amounts in various pH conditions. The uranium sorption was not high at a low pH (e.g., pH 3), but increased with increasing pH. There were lower uranium sorption by the weathered biotites than by the fresh ones, and the difference was much larger at higher pH (e.g., pH 11). The lower sorption values of uranium by the weathered biotites may be caused by a change of mineral surfaces and a chemical behavior of surrounding dissolved elements. It seems that the uranium-mineral interaction has been diminished, especially, in the weathered biotite by a destruction and dissolution of preferential sorption sites on the mineral surfaces and by the colloidal formation from dissolved elements.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.54-57
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• 2012

Mass spectrometric analysis was carried out using multicollector inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (MC-ICP-MS) for the precise and accurate determination of the isotope ratios of ultratrace levels of uranium dissolved in 3% $HNO_3$. We used the certified reference material (CRM) 112-A at a trace level of 100 pg/mL for the uranium isotopic measurement. Multiple collectors were utilized for the simultaneous measurement of uranium isotopes to reduce the signal uncertainty due to variations in the ion beam intensity over time. Mass bias correction was applied to the measured U isotopes to improve the precision and accuracy. Furthermore, elemental standard solution with certified values of platinum, iridium, gold, and thallium dissolved in 3% $HNO_3$ were analyzed to investigate the formation rates of the polyatomic ions of $Ir^{40}$ $Ar^+$, $Pt^{40}$ $Ar^+$, $Tl^{40}$ $Ar^+$, $Au^{40}$ $Ar^+$ for the concentration range of 50-400 pg/mL. Those polyatomic ions have mass-to-charge ratios in the 230-245 m/z region that it would contribute to the increase of background intensity of uranium, thorium, plutonium, and americium isotopes. The effect of the polyatomic ion interference on uranium isotope measurement has been estimated.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.196-203
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• 2004

To understand the geochemical processes in the Han River Estuary, distributions and behaviors of nutrients, dissolved organic matters, and uranium were investigated and analyzed during estuarine tidal mixing in June 2000 and February 2001. The distribution of inorganic nutrients showed very dynamic distributional patterns implying an apparent nitrification process and a concave non-conservative mixing along the salinity gradient. Dissolved organic carbon was high in the upstream region and decreased sharply in the low salinity region of around 5 psu. The 3-D fluorescence characteristic of dissolved organic matter showed two distinct fluorophores in the study area. Biomacromolecules originated mainly from the indigenous biochemical processes and geomacromolecules from terrestrial humic materials. In the study area, the distribution of geomacromolecule showed a concave non-conservative property along the salinity gradient presumably due to the flocculation and removal processes in the estuary. Meanwhile, distribution of the dissolved uranium, mainly in the form of stable uranium carbonate complex, also showed a concave non-conservative property along the salinity gradient in the Han River Estuary. From this study, the removal rate of dissolved uranium in the Han River Estuary was estimated to be about 7.1 ton per year.

• Journal of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology(JNFCWT)
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.85-93
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• 2013

This study has been carried out to elucidate the characteristics of the dissolution for Thermal Decomposed Solid Waste of uranium-bearing sludge (TDSW), the removal of impurities by an alkalization in a nitric acid dissolving solution of TDSW, and the selective removal (/recovery) of uranium by an acidification in an carbonate alkali solution, respectively. TDSW generated by thermal decomposition of U-bearing sludge which was produced in the uranium conversion plant operation, was stored in KAERI as a solid-powder type. It is found that the dissolution of TDSW is more effective in nitric acid dissolution than oxidative-dissolution with carbonate. At 1 M nitric acid solution, TDSW was undissolved about 30wt% as a solid residue, and uranium contained in TDSW was dissolved more than 99%. In order to the alkalization for the nitric acid dissolving solution of TDSW, carbonate alkalization is more effective with respect to remove the impurities. At the carbonate alkali solution controlled to about 9 of pH, Al, Ca, Fe and Zn co-dissolved with U in dissolution step was removed about $98{\pm}1%$. On the other hand, U could be recovered more than 99% by an acidification at pH about 3 in a carbonate alkali solution, which was nearly removed the impurities, adding 0.5M $H_2O_2$. It was found that uranium could be selectively recovered (/removed) from TDSW.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.77-85
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• 2018

There would be a possibility of uranium contamination around the nuclear power plants and the underground waste disposal sites, where the uranium could further migrate and diffuse to some distant places by groundwater. It is necessary to understand the biogeochemical behaviors of uranium in underground environments to effectively control the migration and diffusion of uranium. In general, various kinds of microbes are living in soils and geological media where the activity of microbes may be closely connected with the redox reaction of nuclides resulting in the changes of their solubility. We investigated the adsorption and precipitation behaviors of dissolved uranium on some solid materials using hydrogen gas as an electron donor instead of organic matters. Although the effect of hydrogen gas did not appear in a batch experiment that used granite as a solid material, there occurred a reduction of uranium concentration by 5~8% due to hydrogen in an experiment using bentonite. This result indicates that some indigenous bacteria in the bentonite that have utilized hydrogen as the electron donor affected the behavior (reduction) of uranium. In addition, the bentonite bacteria have showed their strong tolerance against a given high temperature and radioactivity of a specific waste environment, suggesting that the nuclear-biogeochemical reaction may be one of main mechanisms if the natural bentonite is used as a buffer material for the disposal site in the future.

• Proceedings of the Korean Nuclear Society Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.241.1-241
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• 2002