Radium removal from mine waters in underground treatment installations

The underground mining of hard coal is widespread in the Upper Silesian Coal Basin (southern Poland). In deep mines, inflows of highly mineralised waters containing radium isotopes are numerous. These waters cause severe damage to the natural environment due to the salinity, but additionally radioactive pollution occurs. The region is densely populated, therefore mitigation methods are very important. The method of radium removal has been applied in full technical scale in two coal mines with very good results – in one of the mines radium-bearing waters are treated at the rate of approximately 0.1 m3 s−1, while in another mine salty waters are purified at the rate of 0.1 m3 s−1. The purification takes place in special underground galleries without any contact of the mining crew with the radioactive deposits produced during the process. As a result, release of radium is significantly lower, more than 200 MBq of 226Ra and 228Ra remains underground each day.