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Electrochemical leaching remediation and bioaccessibility study of uranium-contaminated soil

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Abstract

One of the important aspects for remediation of contaminated soils is a reduction of metal bioaccessibility. Citric acid + ferric chloride was used as the electrolyte for the electrokinetic remediation of uranium contaminated soils. The results showed that the highest U removal rates of 70.45% was achieved (S1 site), which was higher than that achieved with leaching alone. After remediation, the bioaccessibility of U and associated metals was significantly reduced and metal stability was increased, especially at the anode. The bioaccessible concentrations of U, Mn, Pb and Zn were related to their respective metal concentrations, soil pH and metal morphologies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are extremely thankful to the anonymous reviewers that work in this paper.

Funding

Open Fund Project of State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Resources and Environment, East China University of Technology (G.No. 2020NRE18). National Natural Science Foundation of China (G.No. 41162007; G.No. 41362011; G.No. 42272301). Graduate Student Innovation Fund of Jiangxi Province (G.No. YC2021-S626).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Nuclear Resources and Environment, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330013, People’s Republic of China

    Shiqi Wang, Bai Gao, Dandan Huang, Wenjie Ma, Shengfeng Liu & Bo Zhang

  2. School of Water Resources & Environmental Engineering, East China University of Technology, Nanchang, Jiangxi, 330013, People’s Republic of China

    Shiqi Wang, Bai Gao, Wenbo Jiang, Dandan Huang, Wenjie Ma, Shengfeng Liu & Bo Zhang

  3. Geology and Mineral Resource Engineering of Zhejiang, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, 310000, People’s Republic of China

    Wenbo Jiang

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  1. Shiqi Wang
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Contributions

S.W.: Investigation, writing-original draft. B.G.: Supervision, investigation, funding acquisition. W.J.: Supervision, writing—review & editing. D.H.: Conceptualization, investigation, data curation. W.M.: Investigation, supervision. S.L.: Investigation, supervision. B.Z.: Investigation, supervision.

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Correspondence to Bai Gao.

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Wang, S., Gao, B., Jiang, W. et al. Electrochemical leaching remediation and bioaccessibility study of uranium-contaminated soil. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 332, 3215–3225 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-023-09015-y

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