The use of barytocalcite for carbon 14 immobilization: One-year leaching behavior

The spent nuclear fuel reprocessing process is one of the anthropogenic sources of carbon-14, and since this element is highly mobile in the geosphere, its sequestration is necessary. Several phases and industrial solutions to immobilize this radionuclide have been studied, including the barytocalcite phase BaCa(CO3)2 at 8.08 wt.% of C, which has many advantages such as its low specific volume of carbon. Recently, different options to synthesize this phase have been reported. Here we report on the aqueous durability of barytocalcite, studied for one year with pure water at 30 °C, in order to complete the behavior studies. Unexpected leaching behavior was encountered: it had been supposed that barytocalcite would only leach slowly, but after 1 year, it was no longer present. It appears that its simple CaCO3 and BaCO3 constituents precipitated, though the overall carbon loss was low during the period studied. This research gives a new insight into the behavior of this phase regarding carbon-14 immobilization.