42 research outputs found
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Mineralogical Charecteristics of Yucca Mountain Alluvium and Effects on Neptunium (V) Sorption
Saturated alluvium is expected to serve as an important natural barrier to radionuclide transport at Yucca Mountain, the proposed geological repository for disposal of high-level nuclear wastes. {sup 237}Np(V) (half-life = 2.4 x 10{sup 5} years) has been identified as one of the radionuclides that could potentially contribute the greatest dose to humans because of its relatively high solubility and weak adsorption to volcanic tuffs under oxidizing conditions. The previous studies suggested that the mineralogical characteristics of the alluvium play an important role in the interaction between Np(V) and the alluvium. The purpose of this study is to further evaluate the mineralogical basis for Neptunium (V) sorption by saturated alluvium located down-gradient of Yucca Mountain
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Summary of Radionuclide Reactive Transport Experiments in Fractured Tuff and Carbonate Rocks from Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site
In the Yucca Flat basin of the Nevada Test Site (NTS), 747 shaft and tunnel nuclear detonations were conducted primarily within the tuff confining unit (TCU) or the overlying alluvium. The TCU in the Yucca Flat basin is hypothesized to inhibit radionuclide migration to the highly transmissive and regionally extensive lower carbonate aquifer (LCA) due to its wide-spread aerial extent, low permeability, and chemical reactivity. However, fast transport pathways through the TCU by way of fractures may provide a migration path for radionuclides to the LCA. Radionuclide transport in both TCU and the LCA fractures is likely to determine the location of the contaminant boundary for the Yucca Flat/Climax Mine Corrective Action Unit (CAU). Radionuclide transport through the TCU may involve both matrix and fracture flow. However, radionuclide migration over significant distances is likely to be dominated by fracture transport. Transport through the LCA will almost certainly be dominated by fracture flow, as the LCA has a very dense, low porosity matrix with very low permeability. Because of the complex nature of reactive transport in fractures, a stepwise approach to identifying mechanisms controlling radionuclide transport was used. The simplest LLNL experiments included radionuclide transport through synthetic parallel-plate fractured tuff and carbonate cores. These simplified fracture transport experiments isolated matrix diffusion and sorption effects from all other fracture transport processes (fracture lining mineral sorption, heterogeneous flow, etc.). Additional fracture transport complexity was added by performing induced fractured LCA flowthrough experiments (effect of aperture heterogeneity) or iron oxide coated parallel plate TCU flowthrough experiments (effect of fracture lining minerals). Finally naturally fractured tuff and carbonate cores were examined at LLNL and LANL. All tuff and carbonate core used in the experiments was obtained from the USGS Core Library, Mercury, Nevada. Readers are referred to the original reports ''Radionuclide Transport in Tuff and Carbonate Fractures from Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site'' (Zavarin et al., 2005) and ''Radionuclide Sorption and Transport in Fractured Rocks of Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site'' (Ware et al., 2005) for specific details not covered in this summary report
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Colloid-Facilitated Plutonium Transport in Saturated Alluvium
Natural groundwater colloids have been recognized as possible agents for enhancing the subsurface transport of strongly-sorbing radionuclides. To evaluate this mechanism, packed-bed column experiments were conducted comparing the simultaneous transport of dissolved plutonium (Pu), Pu sorbed onto natural colloids, 190-nm and 500-nm diameter fluorescent CML microspheres, and tritiated water in saturated alluvium. Experiments were conducted in two columns having slightly different porosities at two flow rates, resulting in average linear velocities (v{sub z}) of 0.6 to 3.65 cm/hr in one column and 0.57 to 2.85 cm/hr in the other. In all experiments, Pu associated with natural colloids transported through alluvium essentially unretarded, while dissolved Pu was entirely retained. These results were consistent with the strong sorption of Pu to alluvium and the negligible desorption from natural colloids, observed in separate batch experiments, over time scales exceeding those of the column experiments. Breakthroughs of natural colloids preceded tritiated water in all experiments, indicating a slightly smaller effective pore volume for the colloids. The enhancement of colloids transport over tritiated water decreased with v{sub z}, implying {approx} 40% enhancement at v{sub z} = 0. The 500-nm CML microspheres were significantly attenuated in the column experiments compared to the 190-nm microspheres, which exhibited slightly more attenuation than natural colloids
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Uranium and Neptunium Desorption from Yucca Mountain Alluvium
Uranium and neptunium were used as reactive tracers in long-term laboratory desorption studies using saturated alluvium collected from south of Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The objective of these long-term experiments is to make detailed observations of the desorption behavior of uranium and neptunium to provide Yucca Mountain with technical bases for a more realistic and potentially less conservative approach to predicting the transport of adsorbing radionuclides in the saturated alluvium. This paper describes several long-term desorption experiments using a flow-through experimental method and groundwater and alluvium obtained from boreholes along a potential groundwater flow path from the proposed repository site. In the long term desorption experiments, the percentages of uranium and neptunium sorbed as a function of time after different durations of sorption was determined. In addition, the desorbed activity as a function of time was fit using a multi-site, multi-rate model to demonstrate that different desorption rate constants ranging over several orders of magnitude exist for the desorption of uranium from Yucca Mountain saturated alluvium. This information will be used to support the development of a conceptual model that ultimately results in effective K{sub d} values much larger than those currently in use for predicting radionuclide transport at Yucca Mountain
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Saturated Zone Plumes in Volcanic Rock: Implications for Yucca Mountain
This paper presents a literature survey of the occurrences of radionuclide plumes in saturated, fractured rocks. Three sites, Idaho National laboratory, Hanford, and Oak Ridge are discussed in detail. Results of a modeling study are also presented showing that the length to width ratio of a plume starting within the repository footprint at the Yucca Mountain Project site, decreases from about 20:1 for the base case to about 4:1 for a higher value of transverse dispersivity, indicating enhanced lateral spreading of the plume. Due to the definition of regulatory requirements, this lateral spreading does not directly impact breakthrough curves at the 18 km compliance boundary, however it increases the potential that a plume will encounter reducing conditions, thus significantly retarding the transport of sorbing radionuclides
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An Updated Site Scale Saturated Zone Ground Water Transport Model For Yucca Mountain
The Yucca Mountain site scale saturated zone transport model has been revised to incorporate the updated flow model based on a hydrogeologic framework model using the latest lithology data, increased grid resolution that better resolves the geology within the model domain, updated Kd distributions for radionuclides of interest, and updated retardation factor distributions for colloid filtration. The resulting numerical transport model is used for performance assessment predictions of radionuclide transport and to guide future data collection and modeling activities. The transport model results are validated by comparing the model transport pathways with those derived from geochemical data, and by comparing the transit times from the repository footprint to the compliance boundary at the accessible environment with those derived from {sup 14}C-based age estimates. The transport model includes the processes of advection, dispersion, fracture flow, matrix diffusion, sorption, and colloid-facilitated transport. The transport of sorbing radionuclides in the aqueous phase is modeled as a linear, equilibrium process using the Kd model. The colloid-facilitated transport of radionuclides is modeled using two approaches: the colloids with irreversibly embedded radionuclides undergo reversible filtration only, while the migration of radionuclides that reversibly sorb to colloids is modeled with modified values for sorption coefficient and matrix diffusion coefficients. Model breakthrough curves for various radionuclides at the compliance boundary are presented along with their sensitivity to various parameters
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Colloid facilitated transport in fractured rocks : parameter estimation and comparison with experimental data.
Colloid-facilitated migration of plutonium in fractured rock has been implicated in both field and laboratory studies . Other reactive radionuclides may also experience enhanced mobility due to groundwater colloids. Model prediction of this process is necessary for assessment of contaminant boundaries in systems for which radionuclides are already in the groundwater and for performance assessment of potential repositories for radioactive waste. Therefore, a reactive transport model is developed and parameterized using results from controlled laboratory fracture column experiments. Silica, montmorillonite and clinoptilolite colloids are used in the experiments along with plutonium and Tritium . . The goal of the numerical model is to identify and parameterize the physical and chemical processes that affect the colloid-facilitated transport of plutonium in the fractures. The parameters used in this model are similar in form to those that might be used in a field-scale transport model
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Colloid and Colloid-Facilitated Contaminant Transport Experiments and Models to Support Assessments of Radionuclide Migration at Yucca Mountain and the Nevada Test Site
In recent years, numerous laboratory and field experiments have been conducted to assess and parameterize colloid and colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport for the Yucca Mountain Project and the Nevada Test Site (NTS) Environmental Restoration Project. Radionuclide contamination of ground water currently exists within or near underground nuclear test cavities at the NTS, and the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level nuclear waste repository represents a potential future source of radionuclide contamination of ground water at the NTS. Furthermore, recent field observations have indicated that small amounts of Plutonium, which normally adsorbs very strongly to mineral surfaces in aquifers, can transport quite rapidly and over significant distances in ground water when associated with inorganic colloids (Kersting et al., 1999). Groundwater samples from all over the Nevada Test Site have been analyzed for colloid concentrations and size distributions, and it is clear that there are significant mass loadings of colloids in the ground water at some locations. These colloids represent mobile surface area for potentially transporting strongly-adsorbed radionuclides. Field transport experiments have involved the use of fluorescent-dyed carboxylate-modified latex (CML) microspheres in the 250- to 650-nm diameter size range as surrogates for natural colloids in forced-gradient tracer tests. These experiments have indicated that effective colloid filtration coefficients appear to decrease as time and length scales increase. They suggest that a small fraction of colloids may be able to transport significant distances in groundwater systems. Laboratory experiments have been conducted to determine radionuclide sorption and desorption parameters onto inorganic colloids present in the groundwater systems and also to determine transport parameters for inorganic colloids in both fractured and porous media present at the Nevada Test Site. More recent laboratory experiments have involved injecting inorganic colloids with radionuclides adsorbed onto them into fractured or porous media to determine the ability of the colloids to facilitate the transport of the radionuclides through the media. Recent experiments have also involved comparing the transport behavior of CML microspheres and inorganic colloids so that more defensible inferences about inorganic colloid transport can be made from CML microsphere transport observations in field tracer tests. All of this experimental information has been collectively used to develop a modeling framework for evaluating sensitivities of predicted colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport to various colloid-transport and radionuclide-colloid-interaction parameters. This modeling framework is helping to focus future experimental efforts on processes and parameters that have the greatest potential impact on colloid-facilitated radionuclide transport at the Nevada Test Site
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Predictions of tracer transport in interwell tracer tests at the C-Hole complex. Yucca Mountain site characterization project report milestone 4077
This report presents predictions of tracer transport in interwell tracer tests that are to be conducted at the C-Hole complex at the Nevada Test Site on behalf of the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Project. The predictions are used to make specific recommendations about the manner in which the tracer test should be conducted to best satisfy the needs of the Project. The objective of he tracer tests is to study flow and species transport under saturated conditions in the fractured tuffs near Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the site of a potential high-level nuclear waste repository. The potential repository will be located in the unsaturated zone within Yucca Mountain. The saturated zone beneath and around the mountain represents the final barrier to transport to the accessible environment that radionuclides will encounter if they breach the engineered barriers within the repository and the barriers to flow and transport provided by the unsaturated zone. Background information on the C-Holes is provided in Section 1.1, and the planned tracer testing program is discussed in Section 1.2