Mechanisms of uranium interactions with hydroxyapatite: Implications for groundwater remediation

The speciation of U(VI) sorbed to synthetic hydroxyapatite was investigated using a combination of U L_III-edge XAS, synchrotron XRD, batch uptake measurements, and SEM-EDS. The mechanisms of U(VI) removal by apatite were determined in order to evaluate the feasibility of apatite-based in-situ permeable reactive barriers (PRBs). In batch U(VI) uptake experiments with synthetic hydroxyapatite (HA), near complete removal of dissolved uranium (>99.5%) to