Radio Active Elements Treatment
Phosphate Removal from Industrial Wastewater
The application of Virotec Technology using ViroPhos reagent for the removal of Phosphorus.
There are a vast number of radioactive elements in the environment, and radiation is a naturally occurring phenomenon which affects our everyday lives.
Radioactive elements are often present in the form of radionuclides, which are atoms with unstable nuclei (i.e., nuclei characterized by excess energy available to be imparted either to a newly created radiation particle within the nucleus or to an electron). Under these conditions, radionuclides undergo “radioactive decay”, emitting gamma ray(s) and/or subatomic particles, a process which may occur naturally, such as potassium-40 (40K), but can also be artificially generated by manmade nuclear reactions and/or accidents and other processes, such as strontium-90 (90Sr) and technetium-99 (99Tc) from nuclear medicine and in the recent nuclear disaster at the Fukushima power plant in Japan where large amount of iodine-131 (131I) and caesium-137 (137Cs) were released into the atmosphere, contaminating surrounding land, water and air, and in the earlier 1986 Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.
Work conducted at Southern Cross University in Australia showed that Virotec’s reagents have an ability to trap and bind radioactive elements (e.g., uranium, thorium and elements produced as a result of the decay of their radioisotopes) that contribute to radioactive contamination of sediments and water systems (Clark, Harrison and Payne, 2009). Trials involving the treatment of acidic metal contaminated water from a uranium mine in Australia showed that both Virotec’s Radium Pro Activ™ and Arsenic Pro Activ™ reagents have an ability to remove uranium and thorium, including their radioisotopes, from acidic water.