RES³T - Rossendorf Expert System for Surface and Sorption Thermodynamics

Radionuclide sorption on mineral-water interfaces can be thermodynamically modelled, similar to solid-solution aqueous-solution systems (only in chemical elemental stoichiometry), if definitions of the standard and reference states, surface activity terms (SAT), and elemental stoichiometries of surface-bound species are unequivocally established. A pre-requisite is that a unique common value of the reference (site) density (Γ_o) must be part of the definitions of standard and reference states, while the sample- and surface-specific maximum density parameters (Γ_max) be included into the SAT corrections to reproduce saturation of physically available adsorption sites instead of introducing the additional mass balance constraints. Subsequently, the standard partial molal properties of surface complexes at multiple surface types on different sorbents can be found, comparable with the standard molar properties of solids, gases and aqueous species. Using surface complexation models (SCM) of U(VI) adsorption on quartz and amorphous silica (SiO₂) phases in GEM (Gibbs energy minimization) implementation, a feasible way is shown how to construct a uniform, internally consistent thermodynamic dataset for surface species of radionuclides; to use standard partial molal Gibbs energies G^o₂₉₈ of surface species in sorption modelling; how to convert G^o₂₉₈ values from/to log K or intrinsic adsorption constants log K^int to use in the law-of-mass action (LMA) speciation codes, and finally, into “smart K_d” values for the applications related to waste repository performance assessment.