Study Offers Insights into the Storage of Nuclear Waste

Peter C. Burns, the Massman Chair of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, and Karrie-Ann Hughes, a doctoral student in the department, are studying the stability of uranyl minerals containing peroxide, specifically studtite and metastudtite. Their research is designed to simulate the alteration of spent nuclear fuel under conditions similar to those expected at the radioactive material repository planned for the Yucca Mountains in Nevada.

Others have investigated alteration phases of spent nuclear fuels, particularly as the 2010 scheduled opening of the Yucca Mountain facility approaches. However, they have focused on uranyl oxides and uranyl silicates as the dominant products involved in the alteration process.

Burns’ study indicates that uranyl peroxides should definitely be considered in assessing the impact of uranyl materials on the release of radioactivity from nuclear waste in a depository.

In fact, studtite has been found on the surface of spent nuclear fuel contained in the K East Basins of the Hanford, Wash., nuclear site and on nuclear material after the Chernobyl Nuclear Plant accident.

Katheryn B. Helean and Alexandra Navrotsky of the University of California-Davis also participated in the study.

http://www.nd.edu/~cegeos/people/faculty/burns.htm

Copyright 2004. University of Notre Dame.