(A) study on the adsorption and subsurface transport of radioactive solutes in the presence of chelating agents

Abstract

In this study, adsorption and transport models were developed to analyze the effect of chelating agents on the adsorption and subsurface transport of radioactive solutes. The effect of chelating agents on the adsorption of radioactive solutes was analyzed by developing an adsorption model based upon the extended concept of distribution coefficient reflecting the presence of chelating agents. Also, a batch adsorption experiment was conducted in order to validate the developed adsorption model and to investigate the effect of chelating agent on the adsorption of radioactive metal solutes. In this experiment, a Cobalt(II)/EDTA/Bentonite system was considered as a representative chelation/adsorption system. It was found from the results that the presence of chelating agents significantly reduced the adsorbing capacity of geologic media such as clay minerals and soils. Thus it was concluded that the presence of chelating agents even in a small amount could contribute to the mobilization of radioactive solutes from radioactive waste burial sites by reducing the adsorbing capacity of geologic media. The effect of chelating agents on the transport of radioactive solutes in subsurface porous media was analyzed by formulating an advective-dispersive transport model which incorporated chelate formation, adsorption, decay, and degradations and by introducing the concept of a tenad. Particularly the governing equation for the tenad of radioactive solutes, \{M\}, was presented as a linear partial differential form by introducing the extended distribution coefficient, $K_D$. The calculated results from the model showed that the transport rate of the chelated radionuclides was much greater than that of the free ionic radionuclides. This much faster transport of the chelated radionuclides was found to be due to the lower retardation factor of the chelated radionuclides than the free ionic radionuclides. The effect of parameters on the transport of radioactive solutes was also a...