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A comprehensive review on sources of radon and factors affecting radon concentration in underground uranium mines

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Abstract

This paper presents an extensive literature review on the various sources of radon such as ore body, backfill mill tailings, broken ore and mine water in underground uranium mines. This review also comprehensively investigates the influence of intrinsic factors such as ore grade, 226Ra content, water content, porosity and surface area of the materials and the extrinsic factors such as barometric pressure, temperature and ventilation on radon concentration in uranium mines. The objectives of this review are to identify the major sources of radon and the parameters significantly affecting radon concentration in underground uranium mine environment. The review demonstrated that backfill mill tailings are the major source of radon in underground uranium mines. A comparison of radon exhalation rates of different rock types and backfill tailings revealed that porosity has more pronounced effect on radon exhalation process than the ore grade/226Ra content of the materials. The radon exhalation rate from the moist materials is comparatively higher than the dry and saturated tailings. Reduction of barometric pressure in mine environment increases the radon exhalation rate from porous rocks, backfill mill tailings and broken ore piles. The contribution of mine water on radon contamination of mine atmosphere mainly depends on the dissolved radon content and flow rate of water. The current knowledge of the factors affecting radon exhalation process has also been reviewed in this paper.

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Acknowledgments

The authors express their sincere gratitude and appreciation to the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable comments and suggestions for improving the quality of the paper.

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  1. Department of Mining Engineering, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, 826 004, India

    Patitapaban Sahu, Durga Charan Panigrahi & Devi Prasad Mishra

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  1. Patitapaban Sahu
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  2. Durga Charan Panigrahi
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Sahu, P., Panigrahi, D.C. & Mishra, D.P. A comprehensive review on sources of radon and factors affecting radon concentration in underground uranium mines. Environ Earth Sci 75, 617 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-016-5433-8

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