Tritium and iodide diffusion through opalinus clay

The International Mont Terri Project started in 1995 under the patronage of the Swiss National Hydrological and Geological Survey (SNHGS), and has the authorization of the Republique et Canton du Jura. The underground rock laboratory is located at the northwestern part of Switzerland (Canton Jura), in and beside the reconnaissance gallery of the Mont Terri motorway tunnel, one of the several tunnels of the A16 'Transjurane' motorway. The depth of overburden above the rock laboratory is approximately 300 meters. The project is aimed to investigate the geological, hydrogeological, geochemical and rock mechanical properties of the Opalinus Clay for assessing the feasibility and safety of a repository for radioactive waste placed in this type of host rock. One of the issues under study is radionuclide migration by diffusion through clays. As a part of this investigation, an interlaboratory comparison on small-scale diffusion experiments was carried out by three research laboratories: AEA Technology (UK), SCK-CEN (Belgium) and CIEMAT (Spain). The radionuclides investigated were tritium and iodine. This paper concerns to the methodological approach and results of the experiments undertaken by CIEMAT. The effective diffusion coefficients were measured for tritiated water and iodine (as Γ), resulting larger for tritium [(1.7±0.4)x10-11 m2/s] than for iodide [(2.7±0.3)x10-12 m2/s]. The porosity available for diffusion was calculated by using the time-lag method, but some results seemed unrealistic and showed a large variability. In general, tritium exhibited higher values of porosity than iodide (17 to 26% and 12 to 17%, respectively), which were consistent with the anion exclusion affecting the distribution of iodide into the clay pores. Copyright (2001) Material Research Society