The through-diffusion method was employed to investigate the effect of the salt concentration on the diffusion behaviour of Re(VII) and Se(IV) in compacted bentonite. The accessible porosity, acc , of Re(VII) increased from 0.25 to 0.38 with an increase of the ionic strength from 0.1 to 1.0 mol/L. The dependency of the accessible porosity acc on the salt concentration could be described approximately by a first-order decay exponential function. The interlayer porosity of GMZ bentonite was 21 % of the total porosity at a bulk dry density of 1600 kg/m 3 at 12 C. The D e values of Re(VII) and Se(IV) increased from 2.6 10 -11 to 6.1 10 -11 m 2 /s and from 1.6 10 -11 to 4.7 10 -11 m 2 /s in GMZ bentonite with an increase of the ionic strength from 0.1 to 1.0 mol/L, respectively. In the case of Se(IV), the adsorption showed a different ionic strength dependency in GMZ bentonite and montmorillonite. The ionic strength has no significant effect on the sorption (K d =1.8 10 -4 m 3 /kg) on GMZ bentonite, indicating the formation of inner-sphere surface complexes. In the case of synthetic montmorillonite, the K d values increased with increasing ionic strength. This can be explained by the fact that the electric potential of surface sites becomes less negative with increasing ionic strength resulting in an increase in the adsorption of Se(IV) at a pH