Use of MgO to mitigate the effect of microbial CO2 production in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant

摘要

The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP), located in a salt bed in southern New Mexico, is designed by US Department of Energy to demonstrate the safe and permanent disposal of design-basis transuranic waste. WIPP performance assessment requires consideration of radionuclide release in brines in the event of inadvertent human intrusion. The mobility of radionuclides depends on chemical factors such as brine pmH (-log molality of H(+)) and CO2 fugacity. According to current waste inventory estimates, a large quantity (approximately 1,000,000,000 moles C) of organic materials will be emplaced in the WIPP. Those organic material will potentially be degraded by halophilic or halotolerant microorganisms in the presence of liquid water in the repository, especially if a large volume of brine is introduced into the repository by human intrusions. Organic material biodegradation will produce a large amount of CO2, which will acidify the WIPP brine and thus significantly increase the mobility of actinides. This communication addresses (1) the rate of organic material biodegradation and the quantity of CO2 to be possibly generated, (2) the effect of microbial CO2 production on overall WIPP performance, and (3) the mechanism of using MgO to mitigate this effect.