Studies of clays from deposits in Ukraine as barrier material for radioactive waste repositories

The purpose of this work is to study clays as engineering barrier material for radioactive waste repositories. Two types of clay from the Cherkassy deposit (300 km south of Chernobyl) were studied at total absorbed doses of gamma irradiation of 10{sup 4}, 10{sup 6} and 10{sup 8}Gy. The sorption of {sup 90}Sr and {sup 137}Cs has been studied as a function of the absorbed dose of gamma irradiation. A series of investigations of the impact of radiation on barrier materials were made using spectroscopy methods (X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD)), electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and infrared (IR) spectroscopy. The obtained results show that the major impact of the high doses is a considerable decrease of distribution coefficient values for {sup 90}Sr.