Influence of humic-acid complexing on the mobility of Americium in the soil aquatic environment

Diffusion data indicate the Am, Cm and Np migrate 1.2, 0.8, and 26 centimeters, respectively, in a thousand years. Thus, excluding mass transport by moving water or wind, actinide elements, such as Cm, Am, and Np that find their way to the soil-aquatic environment are relatively immobile. Measured diffusion coefficients, corrected for distribution between the aqueous and soil phases, tortuosity, negative absorption, and relative fluidity are in reasonable agreement with aqueous diffusion coefficients. However, agreement depends strongly on measurement method used to determine distribution ratios. Two sets of experiments with 241Am and 152Eu tracers have been done to measure distribution ratios as a function of the aqueous humic acid concentration. In the first experiments the solid phase was kaolinite and in the second series of distribution ratios were measured with Burbank sandy loam. Both of these experiments indicated that Am(III) and Eu(III) form very strong humic acid complexes with formation constants of approximately 105. Additional experiments are being done to establish the average number of Am(III)s or Eu(III)s bound to the humic acid polymer