Abstract
Natural uranium is a crucial resource for clean nuclear energy, which has brought significant economic and social benefits to humanity. However, the development and utilization of uranium resources have also resulted in the accumulation of vast amounts of uranium mill tailings (UMTs), which pose a potential threat to human health and the ecological environment. This paper reviews the research progress on UMTs treatment technologies, including cover disposal, solidification disposal, backfilling disposal, and bioremediation methods. It is found that cover disposal is a versatile method for the long-term management of UMTs, the engineering performance and durability of the cover system can be improved by choosing suitable stabilizers for the cover layer. Solidification disposal can convert UMTs into solid waste for permanent disposal, but it produces a large amount of waste and requires high operating costs; it is necessary to explore the effectiveness and efficiency of solidification disposal for UMTs, while minimizing the bad environmental impact. Backfilling disposal realizes the resource utilization of solid waste, but the high radon exhalation rate caused by the UMTs backfilling also needs to be considered. Bioremediation methods have low investment costs and are less likely to cause secondary pollution, but the remediation efficiency is low, it can be combined with other treatment technologies to remedy the defects of a single remediation method. The article concludes with key issues and corresponding suggestions for the current UMTs treatment methods, which can provide theoretical guidance and reference for further development and application of radioactive pollution treatment of UMTs.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to express their sincere thanks for the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2023JJ30495), Environmental Protection Research Project of Hunan Province (HBKT-2021024), Hunan Provincial Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (CX20220979), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (20224BAB203050), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (42277458).
Funding
This work was financially supported by the Hunan Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2023JJ30495), Environmental Protection Research Project of Hunan Province (HBKT-2021024), Hunan Provincial Innovation Foundation for Postgraduate (CX20220979), Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (20224BAB203050), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (42277458).
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All authors contributed to the review study by writing and editing. The first draft writing, data collection, and analysis were performed equally by Jiayi Xin, Changshou Hong, and Jia Wei. Comments on previous versions of the manuscript by Jingwen Qie, Hong Wang, Bo Lei, Xiangyang Li, Ziqi Cai, Qian Kang, and Zhiwei Zeng. Conceptualization, investigation, and resources by Changshou Hong and Yong Liu. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Xin, J., Hong, C., Wei, J. et al. A comprehensive review of radioactive pollution treatment of uranium mill tailings. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 102104–102128 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29401-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-29401-z