The role of chemical reduction in decreasing uranium concentrations in natural groundwaters: A case study from India

Issues of Uranium contamination are widespread across the globe and will continue to increase based on an ever-growing need for power that doesn’t increase our already large carbon footprint. Nuclear power comes with the inherent responsibility to dispose of nuclear waste properly and permanently on human timescales. Reductive precipitation of U from its soluble +6 valence to the insoluble +4 valence is a long-standing strategy for reducing U concentrations at spill sites and in natural settings where groundwaters high in U leached naturally from aquifer rocks exist. Previous authors (Bopp, 2010; Brennecka, 2010; Jemison, 2016) have established methods that use 238U/235U isotopic ratios to establish the effectiveness of remediation techniques and also distinguish reductive precipitation from sorption, a process which may lower U concentrations but only for a short time. We attempt to use these techniques in a natural setting, with groundwaters previously used in a study (Coyte et al., 2018) that quantified widespread U contamination in NW India. With a combination of 238U/235U, δ238U and 234U/238U we were able to notice a general trend of slight positive correlation between δ238U and U concentration, and perhaps most notably, trends within aquifer substrates that imply that δ238U can be used to detect whether reduction has occurred in natural systems.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Geology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2022

Author dc:creator

• Akrie, Perry

Contributors dc:contributor

• Lundstrom, Craig C

• uranium
• chemical reduction
• isotope

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2022 Perry Akrie

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/115824

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F115824