Effects of fine-scale surface alterations on tracer retention in a fractured crystalline rock from the Grimsel Test Site

Tachi, Yukio  ; Ito, Tsuyoshi*; Akagi, Yosuke*; Sato, Hisao*; Martin, A. J.*

Effects of fine-scale surface alterations on radionuclide migration in fractured crystalline rocks were investigated by a comprehensive approach coupling a series of laboratory tests, microscopic observations and modelling, using a single fractured granodiorite sample from the Grimsel Test Site, Switzerland. Laboratory tests including through-diffusion, batch sorption and flow-through tests using five tracers indicated that tracer retention was consistently in the sequence of HDO, Se, Cs, Ni, Eu, and as well as showing the existence of a diffusion-resistance layer near the fracture surface, cation excess and anion exclusion effects for diffusion. Microscale heterogeneities in structural properties around the fracture were clarified quantitatively by coupling X-ray CT and EPMA. A three layer model including weathered vermiculite, foliated mica and undisturbed matrix layers, and their properties such as porosity, sorption and diffusion parameters, could provide a reasonable interpretation for breakthrough curves and concentration distributions near fracture surface of all tracers, measured in flow-through tests.