TITLE:
Natural Radioactivity in Miscanthus floridulu Plant from the Uranium Tailing Pile at Guangdong, South China
AUTHORS:
Gang Song, Qiuping Zhu, Minxing Lu, Diyun Chen, Yongheng Chen
KEYWORDS:
Natural Radionuclides, Uranium Tailings, Miscanthus floridulu, BCFs and TFs
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics,
Vol.2 No.9,
August
22,
2014
ABSTRACT:
Large amounts of uranium waste rocks and
tailings resulting from the exploitation and treatment of uranium ore at the
Northern Guangdong mine (South China) have been accumulated in dams (tailing ponds).
To reduce the dispersion of natural radionuclides into the environment, some dams
were revegetated with arbor, bush and sward. Besides these plants, Miscanthus
floridulu is the dominant plant growing in some of the dams. The uptake and
distribution of naturally occurring uranium (238U), thorium (232Th), radium (226Ra)
and potassium (40K) by Miscanthus floridulu plant from different sample sites
of uranium mine were studied under native conditions. The bioconcentration
factors (BCFs) of soil to Miscanthus floridulu above-ground and root were
calculated and observed to be in the range of 0.14 to 7.74 and 2.71 to 17.83 for 238U, 0 to 3.02
and 0 to 3.29 for 232Th, 0.15 to 79.76 and 1.01 to 50.22 for 226Ra and 3.00
to 8.41 and 2.69 to 11.22 for 40K, respectively. The transfer
factors (TFs) of Miscanthus floridulu root to aboveground were also calculated
and observed to be in the range of 0.01 to 0.73 for 238U, 0 to 0.99 for 232Th,
0.08 to 1.50 for 226Ra and 0.57 to 1.94 for 40K, respectively. The results showed
that, Miscanthus floridulu is 238U and 226Ra-accumulating plant
with significant absorption and accumulation characteristics.