Lithium sorption to Yucca Mountain tuffs

The Li ion has been used as a reactive tracer in field tests performed in the saturated and unsaturated-zone in volcanic tuffs at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. Lithium sorbs weakly by cation exchange and permits field-scale testing of laboratory-based predictions of reactive-solute transport. A series of laboratory studies show that Li sorption is nonlinear and varies with lithology in the different horizons of the tuff. In particular. both Li sorption and Li-specific cation-exchange capacity vary as functions of tuff mineralogy, and can be predicted given quantitative X-ray diffraction data. These results indicate that Li sorption is dominated by clay and zeolite minerals, and that sorption coefficients can be predicted given mineralogic analysis results. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.