Experimental study of pyrite oxidation in compacted sodium bentonite
not registered
The redox condition of near-field is expected to affect the performance of engineered barrier system. Especially, the oxygen initially existing in the pore space of compacted bentonites strongly affects the redox condition of the near-field. For assessing the influence of the oxygen, the transport parameters of it in the compacted bentonite and consumption process should be known. Therefore, following researches were conducted. In order to understand the diffusion of dissolved oxygen (DO) in compacted bentonite and to predict the effect of DO, the effective diffusion coefficients of DO in compacted sodium bentonite were measured by electrochemistry. As the results, the following relationship between the dry density of compacted sodium bentonite and the effective diffusion coefficient of DO in compacted sodium bentonite was derived: De=1.530.1310exp(-2.150.2410p) where De is the effective diffusion coefficient (ms) of DO in compacted sodium bentonite and is the dry density (kg m) of compacted sodium bentonite. The oxygen concentration in the bentonite is expected to be controlled by oxidation of pyrite as impurity in the bentonite. In order to investigate the above idea, the rates of pyrite oxidation by DO in compacted sodium bentonite were estimated from the experimental data on pyrite-bentonite systems usig the obtained effective diffusion coefficient of DO. The results show that the averages of the rate constants of pyrite oxidation by DO in the bentonite for dry densities of 0.8, 0.9, 1.0, 1.1 and 1.210kgm were 1.380.3210, 1.100.2410, 1.160.3510, 9.362.2310 and 7.481.9210ms, respectively. The relationship between the dry density () and the rate constant (k') was expressed as follows: k'=3.941.0610exp(-1.330.2810) ...