Książki

Uranium is an element to be found ubiquitous in rock, soil, and water. Uranium concentrations in natural ground water can be more than several hundreds µg/l without impact from mining, nuclear industry, and fertilizers. Considering the WHO recommendation for drinking water of 15 µg/l (has been as low as 2 µg/l before) due to the chemical toxicity of uranium the element uranium has become an important issue in environmental research. Besides natural enrichment of uranium in aquifers uranium mining and milling activities, further uranium processing to nuclear fuel, emissions form burning coal and oil, and the application of uranium containing phosphate fertilizers may enrich the natural uranium concentrations in soil and water by far. In October 1995 the first international conference on Uranium Mining and Hydrogeology (UMH I) was held in Freiberg being organized by the Department of Geology at the Technical University Bergakademie Freiberg by the support of the Saxon State Ministry of Geology and Environment. Due to the large scientific interest in the topic of uranium a second conference (UMH II) took place in Freiberg in September 1998. Furthermore, in September 2002 scientists working on the topic of uranium mining and hydrogeology attended the third conference (UMH III) which was jointly held together with the International Mine Water - sociation (IMWA) Symposium 2002. The reviewed papers and posters of the 2002 conference have been published by Springer entitled Uranium in the aquatic en- ronment (edited by Merkel, Planer-Friedrich and Wolkersdorfer).

Uranium in the Environment: Mining Impact and Consequences

Long-term Aspects of Uranium Mining Remediation.- Returning the WISMUT Legacy to Productive Use.- The Effects of Weathering and Diagenetic Processes on the Geochemical Stability of Uranium Mill Tailings.- Long term fate of uranium tailings in mountain areas.- Rock phosphates and P fertilizers as sources of U contamination in agricultural soils.- Monitoring of natural radionuclides in soils as a tool for precision farming - methodical aspects.- Electrophoretic characterization of thorium species in very dilute solutions containing humic acid.- Field Portable and Autonomous Immunosensors for the Detection of Environmental Contaminants.- A method to measure arsenic readily released to pore waters from uranium mill tailings.- Impact of humic acid on the uranium migration in the environment.- Uranium speciation in two Freital mine tailing samples: EXAFS, µ-XRD, and µ-XRF results.- Site characterisation of the potential Natural Analogue Site Heselbach in Bavaria/Germany.- Speciation of Colloid-borne Uranium by EXAFS and ATR-FTIR spectroscopy.- Influence of allochthonous plant litter on the fixation of Uranium in sediments.- Advanced Investigations of Unconventional Uranium and Thorium Deposits by In-Situ ?-EDXRF Analysis.- Depleted Uranium (DU ) - Chemo- and Radiotoxicity.- Effect of uranium and cadmium uptake on oxidative stress reactions for Phaseolus vulgaris.- Coupled Microbial and Chemical Reactions in Uranium Bioremediation.- Biotransformation of uranium complexed with organic ligands.- Changes of bacterial community structure of a uranium mining waste pile sample induced by addition of U(VI).- Sorption mechanisms and models. Their influence on transport calculation.- Simulation of propagation of leachate after the ISL mining closure.- Raffinate Neutralization Experiments at the McClean Lake Mill - Removal of Arsenic and Nickel.- Dynamical Models for Uranium Leaching - Production and Remediation Cases.- Development of a 2-D modeling system for reactive transport in variable saturated porous media.- Modelling of uranium release from waste rock pile.- The Role of Groundwater-Stream Interactions for Uranium Fluxes in Fluvial Systems.- Long-term performance of reactive materials in PRBs for uranium remediation.- Uranium leaching during short term application of pit-water on a carbonate containing soil in the Mendoza province of Argentina.- Simultaneous In-Situ Immobilisation of Uranium and Arsenic by Injectible Iron and Stimulated Autotrophic Sulphate Reduction.- The modeling system for finding the optimal mining and wastewater discharge.- Pilot Scale RAPS-System in Gernrode/Harz Mountains.- Passive Biological Treatment Systems of Mine Waters at WISMUT Sites.- Uranium Fate in Saturated Porous Media under Arsenic, Iron and Bacteria Influence: The Role of Potassium.- Interaction of uranium from seepage water with hydroxyapatite.- Integrated water protection approaches under the WISMUT project: The Ronneburg case.- The results of the pilot plant study for arsenic removal.- Uranium in natural wetlands: a hydrogeochemical approach to reveal immobilization processes.- Removal of heavy metals, arsenic and uranium from model solutions and mine drainage waters.- Passive Treatment of Minewater at the Schlema-Alberoda Site.- Decommissioning of Uranium mill tailings ponds at WISMUT (Germany).- Characterizing Uranium Solubilization Under Natural Near Oxic Conditions.- The optimal strategy of cleaning of fucoid sandstone.- A novel technology for sealing and immobilization - the use of precipitation processes from supersaturated solutions.- Variation in heavy metal uptake by crop plants.- Phytoavailability of uranium: influence of plant species and soil characteristics.- Uranium accumulator plants from the centre of Portugal - their potential to phytoremediation.- Soil treatment with nitrogen facilitates continuous phytoextraction of heavy metals.- Possible biomineralisation of uranium in Lemna gibba G3.- Accumulation of natural radionuclides