Effect of aqueous acetic, oxalic, and carbonic acids on the adsorption of europium(III) onto alpha-alumina.

Chemical retention, i.e., partition of the element between aqueous solution and mineral surface, is a key phenomenon for assessing the safety of possible nuclear waste disposal. For this purpose, the sorption of Eu(III) onto a model mineral-alpha-alumina-is studied here, including the effects of groundwater chemistry: pH and concentrations of small organic and inorganic ligands (acetate, oxalate, and carbonate anions). This work presents some experimental evidence for a synergic mechanism of sorption of europium-ligand complexes onto the alumina. Only cationic complexes were necessary to consider to model experimental results. Using the ion-exchange theory (IET) and a corresponding restricted set of parameters-exchange capacities and thermodynamic equilibrium constants-the whole set of sorption experiments of Eu(III) cationic species onto the alpha-alumina was modeled under various chemical conditions.

Sorption of aqueous carbonic, acetic, and oxalic acids onto alpha-alumina.

The presence of organic complexing agents can modify the behavior of a surface. This study aims to better understand the impact of carboxylic acids (acetic, oxalic, and carbonic acids) issued from cellulose degradation and equally naturally present in soils. First, evidence of two different kinds of sites for chloride adsorption onto alpha-alumina and another for sodium sorption was provided. Consequently, no competition between these cation and anion sorptions occurs on alpha-alumina. The associated exchange capacities and ionic exchange constants were measured. Second, the adsorption behavior of the carboxylic acids was studied as a function of aqueous -log[H(+)] and 0.01 to 0.1 M ionic strength (NaCl), and modeled by using mass action law for ideal biphasic systems. The carboxylic acids were found to be adsorbed on the same sites as chloride ions. The competition between organic ligands and chloride ions was satisfactorily accounted for by the model assuming the deprotonated form of the ligands was sorbed on alpha-alumina. The model also allowed us to interpret the adsorption of all species under various conditions without any extra fitting parameters.