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Waste Glass Leaching: Chemistry and Kinetics*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2011

Bruce C. Bunker
Bruce C. Bunker*
Affiliation:
Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM 87185
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Abstract

Nuclear waste glass leaching has been studied extensively during the past ten years. Although much has been learned concerning the kinetics and mechanisms of glass dissolution, it does not appear that accurate predictions can yet be made concerning the release kinetics for specific elements from a given glass as a function of environmental conditions. In order to reliably predict elemental release rates, one needs to know: 1) how a given element is incorporated into the glass structure, 2) how specific sites in the glass react with water, 3) how the composition and reactivity of the leachate influence glass reactivity, 4) how the structure and reactivity of the glass changes in surface alteration layers, and 5) how glass dissolution modifies the chemistry of the leachate. At our current level of understanding, we are only able to make qualitative predictions concerning each of the above factors which allow us to make “order of magnitude” or “upper limit” predictions for radionuclide release rates.

Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 84: Symposium L – Scientific Basis for Nuclear Waste Management X , 1986 , 493
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 1987

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Footnotes

*

This work performed at Sandia National Laboratories supported by the U.S. Department of Energy under contract number DE-AC04-76DP00789

References

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