Drinking Water Using Conventional Iron and Manganese Removal Equipment
The ability of conventional equipment intended for removing Fe and Mn to also remove 222Rn, 226Ra, 234,238U, 210Pb and 210Po from private well water was examined at 12 houses in Finland. The operational principles of the equipment were based on aeration and filtration, ion exchange or manganese greensand filtration. The results indicated that 222Rn removal efficiencies using aeration and filtration varied greatly, from 10 to 90 %. The best removal efficiencies for 234,238U and 226Ra of 80 to 99 % were attained by ion exchangers when anion and cation resins were used in the same filter. Manganese greensand filtration removed over 95 % of 226Ra but less than 60 % of 234,238U. Highly variable efficiencies of the equipment in removing 210Pb and 210Po (0 to 97 %) were observed. However, at most of the test sites studied the activity concentrations of various radionuclides in the treated water were under the guideline values set in Finland.