UNDERSTANDING VARIATION IN PARTITION COEFFICIENT, Kd ...

National Priorities List (NPL) sites and 26 of the 38 NRC Site Decommissioning Site Plan
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5.11.3 Aqueous Speciation
Because of its importance in nuclear chemistry and technology, a great deal is known about the
aqueous chemistry of uranium [reviewed by Baes and Mesmer (1976), Langmuir (1978), and
Wanner and Forest (1992)]. Uranium can exist in the +3, +4, +5, and +6, oxidation states in
aqueous environments. Dissolved U(III) easily oxidizes to U(IV) under most reducing conditions
+ 1
) readily disproportionates to U(IV) and U(VI).
found in nature. The U(V) aqueous species (UO 2
Consequently, U(IV) and U(VI) are the most common oxidation states of uranium in nature.
Uranium will exist in the +6 and +4 oxidation states, respectively, in oxidizing and more reducing
environments.
2+ 4+ 4+
Both uranium species, UO2 and U , hydrolyze readily. The U ion is more readily hydrolyzed
2+
than UO2 , as would be expected from its higher ionic charge. Langmuir (1978) calculated U(IV)
speciation in a system containing typical natural water concentrations of chloride (10 mg/l),
2+
fluoride (0.2 mg/l), phosphate (0.1 mg/l), and sulfate (100 mg/l). Below pH 3, UF2 was the
dominant uranium species. The speciation of dissolved U(IV) at pH values greater than 3 is
+ N
dominated by hydrolytic species such as U(OH) 3 and U(OH)4(aq).
Complexes with chloride,
fluoride, phosphate, and sulfate were not important above pH 3. The total U(IV) concentration in
solution is generally quite low, between 3 and 30 µg/l, because of the low solubility of U(IV) solid
phases (Bruno et al., 1988; Bruno et al., 1991). Precipitation is discussed further in the next
section.
Dissolved U(VI) hydrolyses to form a number of aqueous complexes. The distribution of U(VI)
species is presented in Figures 5.6a-b and 5.7. The distribution of uranyl hydrolytic species
(Figures 5.6a-b) was calculated as a function of pH using the MINTEQA2 code. The U(VI)
aqueous species included in the speciation calculations are listed in Table 5.16. The
thermodynamic data for these aqueous species were taken primarily from Wanner and Forest
(1992). Because dissolved uranyl ions can be present as polynuclear 2 hydroxyl complexes, the
hydrolysis of uranyl ions under oxic conditions is therefore dependent on the concentration of
total dissolved uranium. To demonstrate this aspect of uranium chemistry, 2 concentrations of
total dissolved uranium, 0.1 and 1,000 µg/l, were used in these calculations. Hem (1985, p. 148)
1 Disproportionation is defined in the glossary at the end of this letter report. This particular
disproportionation reaction can be described as:
+
2UO2 + 4H3O + 2+ 4+
= UO2 + U .
2 -
A polynuclear species contains more than 1 central cation moiety, e.g., (UO2) 2CO3(OH) 3 and
4+ Pb4(OH) 4 .
5.67