Clay-based materials for engineered barriers: A review

The potential importance of backfilling and plugging in underground radioactive waste repositories has led different research institutions around the world (SKB in Sweden, CEA in France, AECL in Canada, etc.) to carry out extensive studies of swelling clay materials for the development of engineered barriers. These materials, which have to be emplaced in underground conditions, should combine a variety of complementary properties from both the hydro-thermo-mechanical and geochemical viewpoints: impermeability, swelling ability in order to fill all void space, heat transfer and retention capacity for the most noxious radionuclides. For years, the scientific community has acknowledge the fact that smectite clays best exhibit these properties and, thus, most of the research effort has been devoted to this type of materials. The aim of such studies is to try and link the microscopic characteristics of the material (mineralogy, geochemical properties, microstructure, etc.) to its macroscopic behavior (swelling properties, etc.)