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Updated: May 5, 2026

Speciation and Bioavailability Measurements of Environmental Plutonium Using Diffusion in Thin Films
Published on: November 9, 2015
Plutonium partitioning in three-phase systems with water, colloidal particles, and granites: new insights into
Jinchuan Xie1, Jianfeng Lin1, Xiaohua Zhou1
1Northwest Institute of Nuclear Technology, P.O. Box 69-14, Xi'an City, Shanxi Province 710024, PR China.
Abstract:
The traditional sorption experiments commonly treated the colloid-associated species of low-solubility contaminants as immobile species resulted from the centrifugation or ultrafiltration, and then solid/liquid distribution coefficients (Ks/d) were determined. This may lead to significantly underestimated mobility of the actinides in subsurface environments. Accordingly, we defined a new distribution coefficient (Ks/d+c) to more adequately describe the mobile characteristics of colloidal species. The results show that under alkaline aqueous conditions the traditional Ks/d was 2-3 orders of magnitude larger than the Ks/d+c involving the colloidal species of (239)Pu. The colloid/liquid distribution coefficients Kc/d≫0 (∼10(6)mL/g) revealed strong competition of the colloidal granite particles with the granite grains for Pu. The distribution percentages of Pu in the three-phase systems, depending on various conditions such as particle concentrations, Na(+) concentrations, pH and time, were determined. Moreover, we developed the thermodynamic and kinetic complexation models to explore the interaction of Pu with the particle surfaces.
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