In-situ mineralization of actinides for groundwater cleanup: Laboratory demonstration with soil from the Fernald Environmental Management Project

An attractive approach to decreasing the probability of actinide migration in the subsurface is to transform the ions into less mobile forms by remote treatment. The process described herein relies on a polyfunctional organophosphorus complexant to sequester the mobile metal ions by complexation/cation exchange in the near term. The cation exchanger is designed to subsequently decompose, transforming the actinides into insoluble phosphate mineral forms as the medium of stable long-term isolation. This material can be generated in situ in the subsurface thus eliminating the need for excavation to immobilize the actinide ions. Previous investigations have identified a suitable organophosphorus reagent and profiled its decomposition kinetics, verified the formation of phosphate mineral phases upon decomposition of the reagent, determined solubility limits for appropriate metal phosphates under groundwater conditions, and examined the cation exchange behavior of the calcium salt of the organophosphorus reagent. In this report, the focus is on a laboratory-scale demonstration of the concept using a soil sample from the Fernald Environmental Management Plant