Uranium release from Boom Clay in bicarbonate media

The release of natural uranium from Boom Clay was studied to better understand the mechanisms governing the solid-liquid partitioning of uranium. Batch leaching experiments suggested that the portion of natural uranium released from clay is associated with colloids at a low bicarbonate concentration prevailing in Boom Clay. At increased bicarbonate concentrations, uranium was present predominantly as dissolved species indicating a formation of uranium carbonate complexes. The in situ aqueous uranium concentration, i.e., the concentration in the pore waters collected by piezometers was found to be 2 to 3 orders of magnitudes lower than the one measured by the batch techniques. These results illustrated that the batch techniques may cause a remobilization of uranium containing colloids from clay surfaces into solution when clay is suspended, agitated, and mechanically perturbed. These colloids are attributed to artefacts and are not considered to exist in situ because of the high compaction of Boom Clay. Due to the presence of colloids, a laboratory derived solid-liquid partitioning coefficient is not equivalent to and cannot simply be converted to the distribution coefficient K_d currently used in performance assessment calculations.