Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
Volume 42, Issue 24, Pages 9158-9164Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/es8013634
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Funding
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/C513134/1]
- UK MOD
- Natural Environment Research Council [NE/C513134/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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The mobility and bioavailability of depleted uranium (DU) in soils at a UK Ministry of Defence (UK MoD) weapons testing range were investigated. Soil and vegetation were collected near a test-firing position and at eight points along a transect line extending similar to 200 m down-slope, perpendicular to the firing line, toward a small stream. Earthworms and porewaters; were subsequently separated from the soils and both total filtered porewater (<0.2, mu m) and discrete size fractions (0.2 mu m-100 kDa, 100-30 kDa, 30-3 kDa, and <3 kDa) obtained via centrifugal ultrafiltration were examined. Uranium concentrations were determined by inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) for soils and ICP-mass spectrometry (MS) for earthworms and porewaters, while U-235:U-238 atom ratios were determined by multicollector (MC)-ICP-MS. Comparison of the porewater and earthworm isotopic values with those of the soil solids indicated that DU released into the environment during weapons test-firing operations was more labile and more bioavailable than naturally occurring U in the soils at the testing range. Importantly, DU was shown to be present in soil porewater even at a distance of similar to 185 m from the test-firing position and, along the extent of the transect was apparently associated with organic colloids.
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