Graeme Hosken reports that ground-breaking research on nuclear waste by U.S. scientists has given their South African colleagues working on preventing the pollution of water by the acid-water draining from old mines a new and powerful tool. Scientists at Washington University, in St Louis, have discovered a new method of immobilizing, binding as a compound with another substance, uranium in contaminated groundwater. This is likely to lead to more success in rehabilitation efforts at mines.
Uranium is sometimes a by-product of gold mining. The research was aimed at neutralizing uranium in contaminated groundwater at nuclear waste sites in the U.S. Researchers discovered a new efficient way of using calcium phosphate to react with and immobilize uranium.
The solution is to figure out how to send the phosphate to where the uranium is, and where the phosphate can be added to the natural groundwater flow will bring the uranium into contact with it, said lead researcher Daniel Giammar.
In their experiments, researchers first determined the exact level of calcium in the contaminated water. They then added the phosphate, which formed calcium phosphate, chemically binding and neutralizing the uranium.
Further research will determine if the approach can work in the field.
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