Sorption and desorption of radiocesium by muscovite separated from the Georgia kaolin.

Radiocesium (137Cs) sorption by moderately weathered, sand-sized muscovite, obtained as a byproduct of kaolin ore processing, was observed at various concentrations of added stable Cs (0–100 μmol/L) over a 130 d period. After 18 h of batch sorption with 1 mmol/L NaCl as background electrolyte, conditional 137Cs Kd values were near 2000 L/kg across the entire range of added stable Cs. Over four succeeding months, the Kd values increased by large factors for suspensions with little added Cs but increased only slightly for the suspensions with the most added Cs. The large grains of muscovite used in this study behaved distinctly differently than previously studied, much finer illite in that highly Cs-selective but low-abundance cation exchange sites appeared to be unavailable to the aqueous Cs during the first few days of the experiment. Diffusion pathways to highly Cs-selective sites were thought to be much longer in the muscovite than in frayed edges of illite, causing the highly Cs-selective sites to be isolated from the bulk solution. The longer diffusion pathways may be due to much greater stiffness of the material bounding interlayer wedges in the muscovite than in illite. This isolation from solution led to slow uptake at trace levels of Cs though the final Kd values (after 130 d) at those levels were comparable to those found for some illite. After 130 days, the original solutions were replaced by new electrolyte solutions containing no Cs, to observe 137Cs desorption over another 130 d period. There was no indication of desorption of 137Cs from the slowly accessible, highly Cs-selective sites apparently reached by most of the 137Cs during sorption at the low Cs levels. The byproduct mica from kaolin processing might serve effectively as a chemically stable sorbent to isolate accidently released radiocesium and to hold it until the 137Cs is virtually gone.