Migration of Concentrated Radionuclide Solutions in Water-Saturated Soil—Investigation of a Hypothetical High Activity Waste Solution Discharge Accident

Abstract

For the case of postulated leakage from a tank containing a high activity nuclear waste solution, as planned for the German reprocessing plant at Gorleben, the migration of radionuclides in the groundwater current has been examined. As the nuclide migration velocity is strongly influenced by sorption processes, which for a given soil are concentration dependent, adsorption and desorption coefficients for strontium, cesium, ruthenium, and cerium were measured over a wide concentration range in sandy subsoil taken from the Gorleben site. Using the results from the adsorption experiments and neglecting the fact that the sorption coefficients in the case of desorption turn out to be significantly higher, migration velocities and concentration profiles for strontium, cesium, ruthenium, and cerium were calculated with the MOFIS code. The results show significant delay and concentration decrease of the radionuclides with strontium being the “critical” element.