Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Environmental Microbiology Laboratory (EML), EPFL-ENAC-IIE-EML, Station 6, CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Musée cantonal de géologie, Université de Lausanne , CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland.
Environ Sci Technol. 2016 Nov 15;50(22):12266-12274. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.6b03732. Epub 2016 Nov 4.
Hundreds of tons of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition were used in previous armed conflicts in Iraq, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia/Kosovo. The majority (>90%) of DU penetrators miss their target and, if left in the environment, corrode in these postconflict zones. Thus, the best way to understand the fate of bulk DU material in the environment is to characterize the corrosion products of intact DU penetrators under field conditions for extended periods of time. However, such studies are scarce. To fill this knowledge gap, we characterized corrosion products formed from two intact DU penetrators that remained in soils in Bosnia and Herzegovina for over seven years. We used a combination of X-ray powder diffraction, electron microscopy, and X-ray absorption spectroscopy. The results show that metaschoepite (UO(HO)) was a main component of the two DU corrosion products. Moreover, studtite ((UO)O(HO)·2(HO)) and becquerelite (Ca(UO)O(OH)·8(HO)) were also identified in the corrosion products. Their formation through transformation of metaschoepite was a result of the geochemical conditions under which the penetrators corroded. Moreover, we propose that the transformation of metaschoepite to becquerelite or studtite in the DU corrosion products would decrease the potential for mobilization of U from corroded DU penetrators exposed to similar environments in postconflict areas.
数百吨贫铀 (DU) 弹药曾在伊拉克、波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那以及塞尔维亚/科索沃的先前武装冲突中使用。大多数 (>90%) DU 穿甲弹未命中目标，如果留在环境中，在这些冲突后地区会发生腐蚀。因此，了解环境中散装 DU 材料命运的最佳方法是在野外条件下对完整 DU 穿甲弹的腐蚀产物进行特征描述，时间跨度要长。然而，此类研究很少。为了填补这一知识空白，我们对在波斯尼亚和黑塞哥维那土壤中留存超过七年的两个完整 DU 穿甲弹的腐蚀产物进行了特征描述。我们使用了 X 射线粉末衍射、电子显微镜和 X 射线吸收光谱的组合方法。结果表明，假水铀矿 (UO(HO)) 是两种 DU 腐蚀产物的主要成分。此外，还在腐蚀产物中鉴定出了铀钙石 ((UO)O(HO)·2(HO)) 和钙铀云母 (Ca(UO)O(OH)·8(HO))。它们是穿甲弹腐蚀过程中所处地球化学条件的结果。此外，我们提出，在 DU 腐蚀产物中，假水铀矿向钙铀云母或铀钙石的转化会降低在类似环境中暴露的腐蚀 DU 穿甲弹中 U 的迁移潜力。
