Filtration Removal of Americium, Cobalt & Cesium in Ob River Water Under Conditions of Increasing Salinity

In this paper, Michael Boyer attempted to determine the magnitude of an emerging environmental threat: the flow of radioactive materials from industrial sites in the former Soviet Union to rivers and other bodies of water, which in turn empty into the Arctic Ocean. While such radioactive pollution is harmful regardless of its destination, the Arctic’s precarious ecology is particularly vulnerable. Scientists have a poor understanding of this region of the earth; it is difficult to predict the fate of radioactive substances that interact with ice sheets and other features of the Arctic Circle. Furthermore, the Russian Arctic coast lies frighteningly close to Europe and North America. Nevertheless, not all radioactive pollutants make it into the ocean. For one, there are a number of metals that water cannot dissolve. Other radioactive substances are reasonably soluble in fresh water but precipitate out of solution and sink to the seafloor when mixed with salt water. Boyer studied this phenomenon with three different radioactive substances and sought to determine which ones remained reasonably soluble as salinity increased. These pollutants represent a great worldwide threat, for they could pass from the freshwater Ob River to the saline Kara Sea without falling out of solution. Such substances would ultimately flow into the Arctic Ocean. Boyer first tested the influence of increasing salt concentration on the solubilities of the three radioactive pollutants in Ob River water. He repeated the experiment using Hudson River water and, for his third trial, Ob River water that had been treated to remove molecules that might influence solubility. In all three tests, he observed clear differences among the three radioactive substances; some were far more responsive to the changes than others.