0000000000505530
AUTHOR
Stephan Bürger
Speciation and interactions of plutonium with humic substances and kaolinite in aquifer systems
Abstract The speciation of plutonium (Pu) in contact with humic substances (HS) and kaolinite has been performed in aquifer systems. Mainly the redox behavior, complexation, and sorption of plutonium are discussed here. The redox behavior of Pu(VI) in contact with HS was studied and it was found that Pu(VI) is reduced to Pu(III) and Pu(IV) within a couple of weeks. The complexation constants (log β LC ) of Pu(III) and Pu(IV) with HS have been determined by means of the ultrafiltration method. Furthermore, the sorption of Pu(III) and Pu(IV) onto kaolinite has been investigated as a function of pH by batch experiments under aerobic and anaerobic conditions.
Attempts to chemically investigate element 112
Summary Two experiments aiming at the chemical investigation of element 112 produced in the heavy ion induced nuclear fusion reaction of 48Ca with 238U were performed at the Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI), Darmstadt, Germany. Both experiments were designed to determine the adsorption enthalpy of element 112 on a gold surface using a thermochromatography setup. The temperature range covered in the thermochromatography experiments allowed the adsorption of Hg at about 35 °C and of Rn at about -180 °C. Reports from the Flerov Laboratory for Nuclear Reactions (FLNR), Dubna, Russia claim production of a 5-min spontaneous fission (SF) activity assigned to 283112 for the 238U(48Ca,3n)…
Evidence for the formation of sodium hassate(VIII)
SummaryHassium, element 108, was produced in the fusion reaction between26Mg and248Cm. The hassium recoils were oxidizedin-situto a highly volatile oxide, presumably HsO4, and were transported in a mixture of He and O2to a deposition and detection system. The latter consisted of 16 silicon PIN-photodiodes facing a layer of NaOH, which served, in the presence of a certain partial pressure of water in the transport gas, as reactive surface for the deposition of the volatile tetroxides. Six correlated α-decay chains of Hs were detected in the first 5 detectors centred around detection position 3. In analogy to OsO4, which forms Na2[OsO4(OH)2], an osmate(VIII), with aqueous NaOH, HsO4presumably…
Speciation of the oxidation states of plutonium in aqueous solutions by UV/Vis spectroscopy, CE-ICP-MS and CE-RIMS
For the speciation of the plutonium oxidation states in aqueous solutions, the online coupling of capillary electrophoresis (CE) with inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) has been developed. Depending on the radius/electrical charge ratio, the oxidation states III, IV, V, and VI of plutonium are separated by CE, based on the different migration times through the capillary and are detected by ICP-MS. The detection limit is 20 ppb,i.e.109–1010atoms (10-12–10-13g) for one oxidation state with an uncertainty of the reproducibility of the migration times of ≤1% and ≤5% for the peak area. The redox kinetics of the different plutonium oxidation states in the presence of humic subs…