The use of fixatives for response to a radiation dispersal devise attack--a review of the current (2009) state-of-the-art.

Radiation dispersal devices (RDDs), or dirty bombs, are terrorist weapons designed to scatter radioactive materials in large urban areas. Although the main intent of a RDD is to produce general panic and chaos, other impacts such as health, environmental, property and economical damage may also occur. Although one certain method of reducing health risks from a RDD event is to remove the radioactive contaminants from the environment immediately, rapid cleanup after a RDD event may be impossible in many cases. However, preventing the migration of the radioactive contaminant is crucial. Although it may be necessary to allow the contaminant to remain in place, preventing its migration is still essential. Fixatives can reduce or eliminating migration potential of a contaminant introduced by a RDD. This paper reviews the significance of fixatives in response to a RDD event and some of the products which have been identified for such a purpose. Many of the products are promising for application. However, many reports lack quantitative information to allow for effective comparative evaluation. Further, key parameters, such as shelf life and product toxicity, are not typically evaluated. We recommend that standardized performance parameters be established to allow for better comparative evaluation.

Effects of organic matter on the distribution of uranium in soil and plant matrices.

This work studied interactions of uranium with pure organic compounds, such as glutathione, and more complex mixtures, such as humic acid and aqueous plant extracts. High performance liquid chromatography with UV absorption interfaced to inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry sequential detection was used to detect organouranium complexes in a variety of soils and plant materials, indicating that nearly 100% of the uranium extracted from certain plant tissues was bound to organic ligands. In addition, soil sorption experiments indicated that humic acid generally decreased uranium sorption to soils and promoted subsequent desorption of uranium because of uranium partitioning to the organic phase. These experiments demonstrate that organic compounds influence the mobility and chemistry of uranium in the environment.