• DOI:10.1524/ract.1989.46.1.39
• Corpus ID: 201699936

Chemistry of Radioactive Cesium in the Hydrosphere and in the Geosphere

@inproceedings{Lieser1989ChemistryOR,
  title={Chemistry of Radioactive Cesium in the Hydrosphere and in the Geosphere},
  author={Κ. H. Lieser and Thomas Steinkopff},
  year={1989}
}

• Κ. H. Lieser, T. Steinkopff
• Published 1989
• Environmental Science

Cesium is sorbed with relatively high selectivity by clay minerals. Accordingly, in groundwaters Cs is found in high amounts in suspended matter or in colloids, if these consist of or contain clay minerals. The sorption of Cs in sediments is also mainly determined by the presence of clay minerals and the sorption ratio at low salinity is found to be roughly proportional to the clay content in the sediments. Furthermore, with the same sediment the sorption ratio is inversily proportional to the concentration of NaCl which proves that ion exchange on the clay minerals is the prevailing sorption mechanism for Cs. It is shown that the sediments contain small amounts of sorption sites of high selectivity for Cs which govern the sorption behaviour at very small concentrations of Cs ions. These sorption sites are also responsible for Cs sorption on suspended particulates of clay in the groundwaters.