Ecological and corrosion behavior of depleted uranium

Abstract

Environmental pollution with radionuclides, particularly uranium and its decay products is a serious global problem. The current scientific studies estimated that the contamination originating from TENORM, caused by nuclear and non-nuclear technologies, has significantly increased natural level of radioactivity in the last thirty years. During the last decades all the more were talking about the "new pollutant" - depleted uranium (DU), which has been used in anti-tank penetrators because of its high density, penetration and pyrophoric properties. It is estimated that during the Gulf War, the war in Bosnia and Yugoslavia and during the invasion of Iraq, 1.4 million missiles with depleted uranium was fired. During the NATO aggression against the ex Yugoslavia in 1999., 112 locations in Kosovo and Metohija, 12 locations in southern Serbia and two locations in Montenegro were bombed. On this occasion, approximately 10 tons of depleted uranium were entered into the environment, mainly on land, where the degree of contamination ranged from 200 Bq / kg to 235 000 Bq/kg, which is up to 1000 times higher than the natural level. Fourteen years ago there was very little information about the behavior of ecological systems damaged by DU penetrators fired. Today, unfortunately, we are increasingly faced with the ―invisible threat" of depleted uranium, which has a strong radioactive and hemotoxic impact on human health. Present paper provides a detailed overview of the current understanding of corrosion and corrosion behavior of DU and environmental factors that control corrosion, together with indicators of environmental impact in order to highlight areas that need further attention in developing remediation programs.

Keywords

• depleted uranium
• corrosion
• behavior
• environment