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Title: Overview of the geochemical code MINTEQ: applications to performance assessment for low-level wastes. [Interaction of ground water with solidified low-level wastes]

Conference ·
OSTI ID:5352140

The MINTEQ geochemical computer code, developed at Pacific Northwest Laboratory, integrates many of the capabilities of its two immediate predecessors, WATEQ3 and MINEQL. MINTEQ can be used to perform the calculations necessary to simulate (model) the contact of low-level waste solutions with heterogeneous sediments or the interaction of ground water with solidified low-level wastes. The code is capable of performing calculations of ion speciation/solubility, adsorption, oxidation-reduction, gas phase equilibria, and precipitation/dissolution of solid phases. Under the Special Waste Form Lysimeters-Arid program, the composition of effluents (leachates) from column and batch experiments, using laboratory-scale waste forms, will be used to develop a geochemical model of the interaction of ground water with commercial solidified low-level wastes. The wastes being evaluated include power reactor waste streams that have been solidified in cement, vinyl ester-styrene, and bitumen. The thermodynamic database for the code is being upgraded before the geochemical modeling is performed. Thermodynamic data for cobalt, antimony, cerium, and cesium solid phases and aqueous species are being added to the database. The need to add these data was identified from the characterization of the waste streams. The geochemical model developed from the laboratory data will then be applied to predict the release from a field-lysimeter facility that contains full-scale waste samples. The contaminant concentrations migrating from the wastes predicted using MINTEQ will be compared to the long-term lysimeter data. This comparison will constitute a partical field validation of the geochemical model. 28 refs.

Research Organization:
Pacific Northwest Labs., Richland, WA (USA)
DOE Contract Number:
AC06-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
5352140
Report Number(s):
PNL-SA-13321; CONF-8509121-7; ON: DE85017908
Resource Relation:
Conference: 7. annual DOE LLWMP participants information meeting, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 10 Sep 1985
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English