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- Title
Restoration Insights Gained from a Field Deployment of Dithionite and Acetate at a Uranium In Situ Recovery Mine.
- Authors
Reimus, Paul; Clay, James; Jemison, Noah
- Abstract
Mining uranium by in situ recovery (ISR) typically involves injecting an oxidant and a complexing agent to mobilize and extract uranium in a saturated ore zone. This strategy involves less infrastructure and invasive techniques than traditional mining, but ISR often results in persistently elevated concentrations of U and other contaminants of concern in groundwater after mining. These concentrations may remain elevated for an extended period without remediation. Here, we describe a field experiment at an ISR facility in which both a chemical reductant (sodium dithionite) and a biostimulant (sodium acetate) were sequentially introduced into a previously mined ore zone in an attempt to establish reducing geochemical conditions that, in principle, should decrease and stabilize aqueous U concentrations. While several lines of evidence indicated that reducing conditions were established, U concentrations did not decrease, and in fact increased after the amendment deployments. We discuss likely reasons for this behavior, and we also discuss how the results provide insights into improvements that could be made to the restoration process to benefit from the seemingly detrimental behavior.
- Subjects
IN situ processing (Mining); URANIUM mining; URANIUM; URANIUM ores; SODIUM acetate; ACETATES
- Publication
Minerals (2075-163X), 2022, Vol 12, Issue 6, p711
- ISSN
2075-163X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/min12060711