TRANSPORTABILITY OF IODIDE IN SOME ORGANIC SOIL MATERIALS FROM THE PRECAMBRIAN SHIELD OF ONTARIO

Abstract

Knowledge of the transportability of the long-lived and potentially hazardous nuclide ¹²⁹I in organic soils is important for evaluating the concept of safely disposing of radioactive fuel waste from Canadian nuclear power plants. The current concept for the disposal of nuclear fuel waste in Canada involves its emplacement in a vault mined 500–1000 m deep in a stable plutonic rock formation in the Canadian Shield. Degradation over time of components of the vault could lead to the entry of ¹²⁹I to organic soils from contaminated groundwater. Twelve samples from nine organic soils, widely different in degree of humification and in parent vegetation, were collected from the Precambrian Shield of Ontario. Batch reaction techniques were used to measure the kinetics of iodide loss from solution in the presence of the organic soil materials. All soil materials exhibited an initial constant rate of iodide loss from solution (zero-order kinetics). The rate constants for iodide loss for the different soil materials ranged from 1.44 to 36.0 mg iodide per kilogram soil per day. The natural I content for the organic soil samples was positively correlated to the measured rate constant. It is concluded that the rate constant for iodide, as measured in the laboratory, is related to the processes that operate in the field to immobilize I under natural conditions, and that a zero-order kinetic model is appropriate for describing the loss of iodide from the solution phase in an organic soil. Key words: Organic soils, iodide-129, groundwater, transport kinetics, immobilization