Retention of Iodide and Chloride by Formation of a Green Rust Solid Solution GR-Cl_1-I: A Multiscale Approach

The uptake of iodide and chloride during the synthesis of green rust (GR), the Fe endmember of the layered double hydroxide (LDH) group, was investigated. GR compounds were prepared by aerial oxidation of Fe(OH)₂ in suspension, considering various I/Cl ratios at constant ionic strength. Only GR compounds formed in all experiments, and the associated I/Cl ratio increased with that of the starting suspension. No preferential uptake of any halide could be detected, and all compounds had comparable morphology. Furthermore, the height of the interlayer gallery increased with the I/Cl ratio from ∼7.7 Å for the chloride endmember to ∼8.3 Å for the iodide endmember, and the observed linear increase was attributed to increasing interlayer iodide content. In all compounds, Fe K-edge X-ray absorption spectroscopy evidenced the presence of sixfold coordinated iron with a Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ ratio of 3, homogeneously distributed within flattened octahedral sites, with six Fe as next-nearest neighbors. The Fe short-range environment was not affected by the interlayer composition, and no halide from the interlayer could be detected. Furthermore, iodide and chloride anions are located in a water-like environment, being loosely bound by weak electrostatic interactions to the octahedral sheet likely above ferric iron. Results consistently hint at the formation of a solid solution between chloride and iodide GR endmembers, certainly facilitated by the crystallization of both compounds in the same space group. This study provides further insights into the ability of LDH to simultaneously accommodate several anionic species of various sizes. The formation of such LDH compounds in a deep geological repository for nuclear waste thus represents a possible retention barrier to the migration to the far field of anionic species like ³⁶Cl^- and ¹²⁹I^- mobilized from the waste matrix. The extent of retention in disposal sites will depend, among others, on the availability of GR and on the concentration of competing anions.