Laboratory investigation on the removal of radium from groundwater by Ba(Ra)SO4 co-precipitation

The USEPA radionuclides regulations have spurred significant research efforts for developing better technology for radium removal from groundwater. The use of barium chloride to remove radium from groundwater is a promising technique. For that, laboratory experiments were carried out to evaluate the effectiveness of different barium chloride doses on the reduction of radium and its impact on other water parameters, particularly barium. The results revealed that a dosage of 3 mg l–1 as barium can achieve more than 90% removal of radium. The addition of sodium sulphate did not improve the radium removal dramatically. The barium level increased from 0.039 to 1.04 mg l–1 all over the used doses, which is still below its MCL.