Interaction of bentonite with supercritically carbonated concrete

Bentonite and concrete are essential components in construction of a geological high level nuclear waste (HLNW) repository. Conventional Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) used for concretes gives a pore water leachate with a pH as high as 13.5 in contact with ground water. This alkaline plume of leaching waters might perturb the engineered barrier system, which might include bentonite buffer, backfill material or the near-field host rock. The accepted solution to maintain the bentonite stability, which is controlled by the pH, is to develop cementitious materials with pore water pH around 11. Four lixiviation experiments representative of long-term interaction of solids and pore fluids at the concrete/bentonite interface were performed with two types of cement paste, Portland and calcium aluminate cement, before and after being carbonated under supercritical conditions, with granite water at 80 °C. The evolution of the pH indicates that the supercritical carbonation reduced the alkalinity of the cement pastes and calcite likely controls the equilibrium of Ca at the end of the experiments. The bentonite helps to buffer the alkalinity of concrete leachates through several reactions such as dissolution of montmorillonite and precipitation of secondary products as trioctahedral smectite, zeolites (gismondine), and presumably Mg hydroxides and amorphous gels. Carbonation may reduce propagation of the alkaline plume and enhance the barrier performance.