Aspects of environmental actinide chemistry

Since their application in various technologies, notably in nuclear energy, actinide elements have gained significant interest by environmental scientists. Besides uranium and thorium, also transuranium elements, notably plutonium, can be found in the natural environment. While the naturogenic plutonium isotopes ²⁴⁴Pu and ²³⁹Pu are only abundant at ultra trace levels in the earth crust, antropogenic releases between the 1950s and the 1970s via nuclear weapon tests and from military processing installations into the environment amount to more than 20 tons. In addition, quite a number of countries using nuclear energy have decided to dispose spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository without separating uranium and plutonium. Understanding environmental actinide behaviour is certainly of high relevance not only to appraise actinide propagation in the biosphere but also to assess their behaviour in a deep geological repository over long time scales. Since their application in various technologies, notably in nuclear energy, actinide elements have gained significant interest by environmental scientists. Besides uranium and thorium, also transuranium elements, notably plutonium, can be found in the natural environment. While the naturogenic plutonium isotopes ²⁴⁴Pu and ²³⁹Pu are only abundant at ultratrace levels in the earth crust, antropogenic releases between the 1950s and the 1970s via nuclear weapon tests and from military processing installations into the environment amount to more than 20 tons. In addition, quite a number of countries using nuclear energy have decided to dispose spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository without separating uranium and plutonium. Understanding environmental actinide behaviour is certainly of high relevance not only to appraise actinide propagation in the biosphere but also to assess their behaviour in a deep geological repository over long time scales. Since their application in various technologies, notably in nuclear energy, actinide elements have gained significant interest by environmental scientists. Besides uranium and thorium, also transuranium elements, notably plutonium, can be found in the natural environment. While the naturogenic plutonium isotopes ²⁴⁴Pu and ²³⁹Pu are only abundant at ultratrace levels in the earth crust, antropogenic releases between the 1950s and the 1970s via nuclear weapon tests and from military processing installations into the environment amount to more than 20 tons. In addition, quite a number of countries using nuclear energy have decided to dispose spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository without separating uranium and plutonium. Understanding environmental actinide behaviour is certainly of high relevance not only to appraise actinide propagation in the biosphere but also to assess their behaviour in a deep geological repository over long time scales. Since their application in various technologies, notably in nuclear energy, actinide elements have gained significant interest by environmental scientists. Besides uranium and thorium, also transuranium elements, notably plutonium, can be found in the natural environment. While the naturogenic plutonium isotopes ²⁴⁴Pu and ²³⁹Pu are only abundant at ultratrace levels in the earth crust, antropogenic releases between the 1950s and the 1970s via nuclear weapon tests and from military processing installations into the environment amount to more than 20 tons. In addition, quite a number of countries using nuclear energy have decided to dispose spent nuclear fuel in a geological repository without separating uranium and plutonium. Understanding environmental actinide behaviour is certainly of high relevance not only to appraise actinide propagation in the biosphere but also to assess their behaviour in a deep geological repository over long time scales