The Environmental fate of Citric Acid and Citrate

Due to the potential for complexing agents to significantly enhance radionuclide and nonradiological contaminant mobility the permit for disposal of wastes at the LLWR requires chemical complexing or chelating agents to be excluded (LLWR, 2011). There is recognition that aminopolycarboxylic acid complexants such as EDTA are potentially more important that polycarboxylic acids such as citric and oxalic acids due to their relative complexing power and environmental persistence (Randall et al., 2011). Consequently it has been suggested that the use of biodegradable decontamination agents should be encouraged and that the presence of polycarboxylic acids at a concentration of below 0.1% by weight would not be expected to lead to any significant effect (Randall et al., 2011, LLWR, 2011). The aim of this review is to investigate the environmental fate and persistence of citric acid in order to evaluate the position that biodegradation will attenuate the impact of citric acid on the transport of radionuclides and nonradiological contaminants in the context of the LLWR facility.