Chloride diffusion in pore water in Olkiluoto veined gneiss and pegmatitic granite from a structural perspective

ABSTRACTSpent nuclear fuel from Finnish power plants is planned to be deposited deep in the crystalline bedrock in Olkiluoto, Finland. The bedrock and more specifically the elemental composition of ground water, which is composed of the fracture water and the matrix pore water, needs to be well characterized to assess the risks inherent to the long term safety of the site. To this end, it is valuable to investigate elemental composition of the matrix pore water since it tends to conserve hydrogeological signals for longer time spans compared to open fracture waters.In this study, the chloride concentration of matrix pore water in veined gneiss (VGN) and pegmatitic granite (PGR) samples were investigated. Chloride was out-diffused from the naturally saturated rock cores into deionized water. Chloride pore diffusion coefficients were derived by modelling the chloride breakthrough curves obtained from the out-diffusion experiments. Two component modelling gave best fit to the experimental results. There two diffusion coefficients were (9±2)×10-11 m2/s and (0.5±0.1)×10-11 m2/s for PGR and (2.5±0.5)×10-11 m2/s and (0.4±0.1)×10-11 m2/s for VGN. Porosity distribution and total porosities of the rock samples were studied with the C-14-PMMA autoradiography. Porosity for PGR was found to be 0.6 % with large mineral transecting fissures, and porosity for VGN was found to be 0.7 % with highly porous mineral clusters connected to each other via grain boundaries and intragranular pores. The findings here show that heterogeneity has to be taken into account in modelling to find better agreement with the experimental results. C-14-PMMA autoradiography results indicate dual-component behavior for diffusion in PGR and VGN which were used in the modelling.

Through diffusion study on Olkiluoto veined gneiss and pegmatitic granite from a structural perspective

ABSTRACTSpent nuclear fuel from Finnish power plants is planned to be deposited deep in the crystalline bedrock in Olkiluoto, Finland. The bedrock needs to be well characterized to assess the risks inherent to the long term safety of the site. In the bedrock the possibly released radionuclides are mainly transported by water conducting fractures and their transport is retarded by diffusion and sorption. In porous materials these properties are typically linked to microscopic pore structure (pore size distribution, tortuosity and constrictivity) and chemical nature of the minerals and groundwater.In this work transport properties of veined gneiss (VGN) and pegmatitic granite (PGR) samples from Olkiluoto were studied using various through diffusion experiments and the C-14-PMMA autoradiography. Through diffusion experiments were performed on rock cores using HTO and 36Cl in water phase and He in gas phase as tracers. The effective diffusion coefficients (De) determined for the VGN were found to be dependent on the tracer molecule (De(HTO) < De(He) < De(Cl)) whereas for the PGR such a dependence was not found. The porosity distributions determined by the C-14-PMMA autoradiography revealed the difference in the pore structure between the samples. The porosity of VGN consists mostly of grain boundary pores and pores between biotite lamellae. Due to a high content of nanometer scale pores anion exclusion affected the results of 36Cl and Knudsen diffusion the ones of He for VGN. Furthermore, in the PGR micrometer scale intra- and intergranular fissures form a connected network for diffusive transport and thus all tracers diffuse at the same rate.