Radioactivity assessment of the waste deposited in Candonga’s lake after the Fundão dam’s collapse

Autores/as

  • Carolina Braccini Freire Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear image/svg+xml
  • Talita Santos Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/Departamento de Anatomia e Imagem
  • Gabriel Sales Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais/Departamento de Engenharia Química
  • Fernando Lameiras Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear image/svg+xml
  • Zildete Rocha Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear image/svg+xml
  • Valeria Cuccia Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear image/svg+xml

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15392/bjrs.v7i3.850

Palabras clave:

Fundão dam's collapse, waste, radioactivity assessment.

Resumen

The collapse of the Fundão dam on November 5th 2015 caused impacts along the hydrographic basin of Rio Doce. Renova Foundation has the mission to repair, restore and reconstruct the regions affected by this disaster. After the collapse, a huge amount of waste was deposited in Risoleta Neves Hydroelectric Power Plant’s lake (Candonga). This waste has been dredged out from the lake and deposited in a nearby pile. The use of the waste from this pile is being considered for civil construction. Samples of this waste pile were collected and they were characterized by X-rays diffraction and EDS analyses, which showed that it consists of 80% quartz, 11% hematite, 8% goethite and 1% clays, mainly kaolinite. There is also organic matter consisting of branches, roots and leaves of trees and plants. Previous radiological analyses made before the collapse showed that the radionuclide content of the waste deposited in Fundão dam was very low. However, the waste deposited in Candonga’s lake has a new composition and it is important to evaluate its radioactivity assessment. The analyses results of the Candonda’s waste samples will be presented and compared to the results obtained in the Fundão dam samples, before its collapse.

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Biografía del autor/a

  • Carolina Braccini Freire, Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear
    Waste Management Section

Referencias

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Publicado

2019-07-04

Número

Vol. 7 Núm. 3 (2019)

Sección

Articles

Licencia

Derechos de autor 2019 Brazilian Journal of Radiation Sciences (BJRS)

Creative Commons License

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución 4.0.

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Cómo citar

Radioactivity assessment of the waste deposited in Candonga’s lake after the Fundão dam’s collapse. Brazilian Journal of Radiation Sciences (BJRS), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, v. 7, n. 3, 2019. DOI: 10.15392/bjrs.v7i3.850. Disponível em: https://bjrs.org.br/revista/index.php/REVISTA/article/view/850. Acesso em: 17 jul. 2025.