The Hanford Site in the United States has over 200 million liters of alkaline nuclear waste. Radioactive iodine is frequently the limiting radionuclide for disposing of the waste in a repository due to the assumption of high solubility. There has been minimal actual data on the speciation of iodine, however. This study dissolved soluble salts from a Hanford waste sample to concentrated insoluble species and then searched for iodine-species using Scanning Electron Microscopy. Silver-iodine associations were found in the sample using Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy, indicating that this iodine was in the form of silver iodide or iodate. These silver bearing species have relatively low water solubility, which may limit the release of iodine to the environment.
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