Abstract—Distribution of uranium (Ⅵ) between soil solids and solutions is a key parameter in assessing the risk to the biosphere of disposing uranium-rich waste products from uranium (U) ore mining and metallurgy. The different soil horizons have unequal physical and chemical properties and effect uranium adsorption and transformation on them. In this experiment, the effects of the soil horizons (eluvial horizon/E horizon, illuvial horizon/B horizon and parent material horizon/C horizon), particle size, contact times and temperature were discussed at 30 mg/L uranium solution. The maximum adsorption capacity of uranium for E and B horizon soils are 23.60 and 22.82 mg/g, respectively at 45 min, and for C horizon soil is 13.05 mg/g at 60 min. The temperature and particle size shows different effects with different soil horizons. Uranium adsorption capacity increased by temperature from 15 to 25℃ and had a slight down at 25 to 55℃ for E and B horizon. But it increased by temperature from 15 to 55℃ with C horizon. Uranium adsorption capacities are inversely proportion to grain-size scale for the three soil horizons. In addition, the results of XRF, and SEM on three soil horizons also confirmed that there are some differences among the soil profile on the compositional elements and particle size distribution. The experiment results may be helpful to predict the transformation of U in soil and remediation program for tailing impoundment leachate.
Index Terms—Uraniumm Soil horizons, adsorption.
The authors are with the School of Environmental and Safety Engineering, University of South China, Hengyang, 421001, China (e- mail: shawn_zhang@sina.com).
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Cite: Sheng Yang, Xiaowen Zhang, Xiaoyan Wu, Mi Li, Lijiang Zhang, and Qianwen Huang, "Adsorption Characteristics of U(VI) in the Soil Horizons Near Uranium Tailing Impoundment Area," International Journal of Engineering and Technology vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 44-47, 2019.
