Humic substances in performance assessment of nuclear waste disposal: Actinide and iodine migration in the far-field First technical progress report

The present project is one in a series of research activities supported by the European Commission on the role of humic substances for the long-term safety of nuclear waste disposal. These activities started in the mid eighties within the MIRAGE project (MIgration of RAdionuclides in the GEosphere) with the most recent project being ''Effects of humic substances on the migration of radionuclides: Complexation and transport of actinides (HUMICS)'' (FI4W-CT96-0028). The HUMICS project was conducted within the fourths framework of the European Commissions research program. It started January 1997 and had a duration of three years. The results of the HUMICS project can be found in three open technical progress reports and a final report [1-4]. In analogy with the HUMICS project, the present project makes use of annual technical progress reports where individual results are published as papers in the form of annexes. By this approach, results rapidly become available to interested parties in a compact form before their publication in various scientific journals and conference proceedings. Furthermore, some of the more preliminary and/or detailed results are not likely to appear in scientific journals and proceedings. The present project is conducted within the fifths framework of the European Commissions research program. It started November 2001 and has a duration of three years. The present report covers the first project year, i.e. November 2001 to September 2002. The project is divided into eight different work packages. These are (i) ''Critical assessment of experimental methods'', (ii) ''Generation and characterization of humic substances'', (iii) ''Radionuclide humate interaction data by designed system investigations'', (iv) ''Characterization of radionuclide humate complexes'', (v) ''Natural chemical analogue studies'', (vi) ''Radionuclide transport experiments'', (vii) ''Model development'', and (viii) ''Performance assessment''. Division of work into specified work packages sometimes is not straight forward. This is also reflected in the structure of the report. The executive summary report follows the project work package structure. The annexes focus on scientific results without reference to specific work packages. Following this approach, the reader can get an overview over the overall progress by the executive summary report. Detailed information on scientific results and the respective originators is found in the annexes. It should also be noted that some results presented in the executive summary report originate from presentations and communication within the project without being presented as an annex paper. Further information on such results can be obtained through the editor. (orig.) / Available from TIB Hannover: ZA 5141(6800) / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische Informationsbibliothek / SIGLE / DE / Germany