Implications of halide leaching on chlorine-36 studies at Yucca Mountain
Guoping Lu, Eric L. Sonnenthal, and Gudmundur S. Bodvarsson
Contact: Guoping Lu, 510/495-2359, GPLu@lbl.gov
Research Objectives
Chlorine-36 generated from worldwide nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s has been used to identify fast flow paths at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, the proposed site for a national high-level nuclear waste repository. Fast flow refers to preferential transport of water through faults or fractures in surrounding rock media with relatively low permeability. Bomb-pulse 36Cl carried into the subsurface by infiltrating rainwater presumably resides along fracture surfaces. However, leaching a rock sample to extract this salt inevitably extracts pore-water chloride (Cl) and rock chloride from the matrix as well. The work described here contributes to the understanding of leaching processes for the ongoing validation study of 36Cl at Yucca Mountain.
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 Model results indicating effects fo chip size, leaching time, and rock pore water composition on 36Cl/Cl for leachate at 1 hour and 48 hours simulated leaching time presented for rock samples from TCw, PTn, and TSw
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