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Vegetable composts for sea water uranium extraction
Author(s) -
Marzotto Armando,
Montoneri Enzo,
Savarino Piero,
Viscardi Guido,
Croatto Ugo
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of chemical technology and biotechnology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.64
H-Index - 117
eISSN - 1097-4660
pISSN - 0268-2575
DOI - 10.1002/jctb.280580303
Subject(s) - uranium , lignin , chemistry , humus , compost , environmental chemistry , adsorption , extraction (chemistry) , cellulose , nutrient , nitrogen , pulp and paper industry , soil water , environmental science , waste management , chromatography , organic chemistry , metallurgy , materials science , soil science , engineering
Composting wood or crop residues by the addition of tanneries sludge as nitrogen supplement yields products having lower polysaccharides and protein content, but higher relative concentration of lignin material than the starting mixture. When used as sea water uranium adsorbents, the compost products exhibit higher uranium uptake (3.0–100 μg g −1 ) than parent ligno‐cellulosic materials (0.3–9 μg g −1 ), thus achieving over 10 4 ‐fold uranium concentration relative to sea water. An additional distinguishing feature is the strong pH effect observed on uptake by products. The results are consistent with the expected change of parent lignin to lignin‐humus in the compost product.