Sorption of uranium by brine-saturated halite, mudstone and carbonate minerals

Batch and column sorption experiments were conducted to quantify the retardation of uranium in brine-saturated halite, LSA-4 carbonate, Wolfcamp carbonate, and mudstone from Palo Duro Basin, Texas, one of the three sites originally nominated by U.S. Department of Energy for construction of a civilian nuclear waste repository. The data indicated a very strong retardation of uranium by all media. Retardation factors computed from batch experiments were 4.32, 17.2, and 10.3 for halite, LSA-4 carbonate, and Wolfcamp carbonate, respectively. Due to nonlinearity of the log-transformed batch data, no retardation factor was computed for mudstone. Predictions with an advection-dispersion-sorption model did not agree with the halite experimental data, but were in partial agreement with the LSA-4 carbonate experimental breakthrough curves.