Chemical extractions applied to the determination of radium speciation in uranium mill tailing: Study of different reagents.

I. Yousfi, J. Bole, 0. Geiss. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Vol. 240, No. 3 p.835-840

Sequential extraction procedures are widely used to determine trace elements speciation in soils or sediments in order to estimate the contaminants availability for plants uptake or migration towards ground waters. The aim of this work was to apply such an approach to determine radium speciation in uranium mill tailing in which the composition of the solid phase is close to that of soils. Two different extractants were used to assess the part of radium bound to carbonates. The effect of the pH of extracting solution or its concentration were investigated in order to select the best extraction conditions, that is, the most selective.