• Journal of the Mineralogical Society of Korea
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.23-34
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• 2009

The adsorption of iodide on untreated bentonite and bentonites modified with organic cation (i.e., hexadecylpyridinium chloride monohydrate ($HDP^+$)) was investigated, and the organobentonites were characterized using uptake measurements, ${\mu}$-XRD, and electrophoretic mobilities measurement. Uptake measurements indicate that bentonite has a high affinity for $HDP^+$. Our ${\mu}$-XRD study indicates that organobentonites significantly expanded in basal spacing and organic cations were substantially intercalated into the interlayer spaces of bentonite. The electrophoretic mobility indicates that organobentonite tht is modified with organic cations in excess of the CEC of bentonite is completely different from untreated bentonite in the surface charge distribution. We found significant differences in adsorption capacities of iodide depending on the bentonite properties as follows: iodide adsorption capacities were 439 mmol/kg for the bentonite modified with $HDP^+$ at an equivalent amount corresponding to 200% of the CEC of bentonite whereas no adsorption of iodide was observed for the untreated bentonite. The molecular environments of iodine adsorbed on organobentonites were further studied using I K-edge and $L_{III}$-edge x-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS). The X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) of iodine spectra from organobentonites was similar to that of KI reference solution. Linear combination fitting of EXAFS data suggests the fraction of iodine reacted with the organic compound increased with increasing loading of the organic compound on organobentonites. In this study, we observed significant differences in the adsorption environments of iodide depending on the modified property of bentonite and suggest that an organobentonite has potential as reactive barrier material around a nuclear waste repository containing anionic radioactive iodide.