Imperial College London
Alternate

ProfessorDominikWeiss

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Earth Science & Engineering

Professor of Environmental Geochemistry
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 6383d.weiss

 
 
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Location

 

2.39Royal School of MinesSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Kenney:2017:10.1039/c6ra26773d,
author = {Kenney, J and Kirby and Cuadros, J and Weiss},
doi = {10.1039/c6ra26773d},
journal = {RSC Advances},
pages = {7876--7884},
title = {A conceptual model to predict uranium removal from aqueous solutions in water–rock systems associated with low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c6ra26773d},
volume = {7},
year = {2017}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Global  stores  of  radioactive  waste  are  housed  in  surface  stores  where  actinides  are susceptible  to  environmental  release.    It  is  imperative  that  waste  disposal  facilities are  built  to  safely  contain  this  waste.  However,  to  do  this  we  must  ensure  that  the engineered  and  natural  barriers  are  sufficient to  prevent  the  buried materials  from migrating  through  to  the  surface.  Solutions  migrating  from  repositories  (ILW  and LLW)  will  have  a  wide  range  of  chemical  compositions  and  conceptual  models constraining   the key   mineral-water   interactions   with   realistic   lithologies   are urgently  needed.    To  this  end,  we  conducted  experiments  to  study  U  removal  from solution  via  mineral-surface  interactions  with  quartz,  sandstone,  and  volcanic  rock over a pH range of 2-12, with varying concentrations of U (10 ppb, 0.1 ppm, 1 ppm, and  10  ppm)  and  with  and  without  bicarbonate  added  (2  mM)  with  0.1  M  NaCl electrolyte.  We observed that the U concentration in solution had little effect on the extent of U removal from solution as a  function of pH or bicarbonate  concentration 2with  quartz  and  sandstone  but  was  important for  volcanic  rocks,  where  removal  ofU, due to adsorption, decreased with increasing U concentration between pH 4 and 8.  When bicarbonate was added to solution then the quartz, sandstone, and volcanicrock  geomaterials  acted  similarly  in  their  abilities  to  immobilize  uranium,  with  an adsorption  envelope  from  pH  4-8  followed  by  an  increase  in  U  removal,  likely  via precipitation,  at  high  pH.    When  bicarbonate was  not  added,the  removal  of  U  from solution was more controlled by the geomaterial. Bicarbonate addition at pH 6 -10 lowered  adsorption.  However,  the  addition  of  bicarbonate  in  experiments  with  10 ppm  U  at  pH  10 -12  allowed  for  precipitation  of  U  at  the  rock  surface,  making bicarbonate
AU  - Kenney,J
AU  - Kirby
AU  - Cuadros,J
AU  - Weiss
DO  - 10.1039/c6ra26773d
EP  - 7884
PY  - 2017///
SN  - 2046-2069
SP  - 7876
TI  - A conceptual model to predict uranium removal from aqueous solutions in water–rock systems associated with low- and intermediate-level radioactive waste disposal
T2  - RSC Advances
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/c6ra26773d
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/44144
VL  - 7
ER  -
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