High-level waste-basalt interactions. Annual progress report, February 1, 1977--September 30, 1977

Abstract

Commercial radioactive waste can be placed under ground in a basalt repository to contain significant amounts of radioactive decay heat for the first hundred or so years, which constitutes the ''thermal period'' of waste isolation, if the feasibility is determined that a basalt geology is a suitable medium for storage of radioactive wastes. Several physical-chemical changes analogous to natural geochemical processes can occur in and around this repository during the thermal period. The waste canister can act as a heat source and cause changes in the mineralogy and properties of the surrounding basalts. Geochemically, this is ''contact metamorphism.'' This phenomenon needs to be investigated because it could affect the behavior of the basalt with regard to migration of long-lived radionuclides away from the immediate repository. It is well known that even the relatively low-grade hydrothermal conditions possible in the repository (temperatures up to 400 degrees Centigrade; pressures up to 300 bars) can cause extensive modifications in rocks and minerals. At the end of the thermal period, the residue of the original waste plus the waste-basalt interaction products would constitute the actual waste form (or ''source term'') subject to the low-temperature leaching and migration processes under investigation in other laboratories. Duringmore » the last eight months of fiscal year 1977, a program was initiated at The Pennsylvania State University which had as its objective the determination of the nature and implication of any chemical or mineralogical changes in, or interactions between, each candidate radioactive waste form and representative Columbia River Basalt under the various relevant repository conditions during the thermal period. Results of these investigations are given. « less

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