With the fast growth of world population and increasing demand for energy consumption, nuclear energy has become a promising emission-free clean energy. The concerns of the public on safe handling of nuclear energy power facilities have increased due to the recent nuclear plant accidents in Japan and others. Cesium (Cs), strontium (Sr), cobalt (Co) etc. are major radionuclides released from nuclear power plant accidents as fission products and reactor waste. In order to understand the ecological and biogeochemical impact of this integration on the US coasts, a controlled experiment with US coastal soils was designed. A coastal soil from Moss Point, MS was collected and spiked with different concentrations of cesium, cobalt, and strontium salts. The kinetic change over the course of two months was observed. The redox potential and the pH change for the spiked soils at two different moisture levels, field capacity and saturated paste water regimes, were recorded. In addition to the redox and pH studies, a selective sequential dissolution procedure was used to determine the metal speciation and solid-phase binding in the coastal soil. The concentrations of cesium, cobalt, and strontium were determined with ICP-OES and ICP-MS. This research monitors the dynamic changes in cesium, cobalt, and strontium among solid-phase components over time and provides insight as to their biogeochemical transformation in order to design the cost-effective remediation technology to remove these metals and better prepare the US for future potentially nuclear power plant accidents.

Distribution and transformation of Cs, Co, and Sr in the soils of south US coastal ecosystem

247th National Meeting (2014)

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