The role of sulfate-reducing microorganisms in the barrier-material bentonite

The “Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf” (HZDR) is a registered, non-profit institution supported by the authorities of the Federal Go¬vernment and the Free State of Saxony (Germany). The HZDR conducts research in the sectors energy, health and matter. Besides the headquarters in Dresden, we have four other research sites in Grenoble/France, Freiberg, Leipzig, and Schenefeld near Hamburg.
We are working in the department of Biogeochemistry, which is part of the Institute of Resource Ecology. Here, research focusses on the assessment and reduction of risks related to the nuclear fuel cycle, particularly on the disposal of nuclear waste. Of special interest is the understanding of fundamental processes defining transport and accumulation of radiotoxic elements in the geo- and biosphere including the food chain. Chemists, biologists and physicists at our institute use a multitude of methods and tools to identify dominating processes in the ecosphere to understand the (biogeo-) chemistry of the processes on a molecular level with the objective of estimating their relevance for radionuclide migration and identification of potential risks during long-term storage of nuclear waste. In order to identify and characterize chemical species, varieties of spectroscopic tools are used. For the identification and characterization of microorganisms that could potentially influence migration processes of radionuclides or the geochemical properties of materials that are used in a nuclear waste repository, bio-geochemical and molecular biological methods are applied.