A consistent model for estimating the partitioning of Am, Pu and Se in agricultural soils

Abstract

The component additive model UNiSeCs II for simulating the physicochemical behaviour of the radionuclides americium, plutonium and selenium in agricultural soils is presented. The model is validated by estimating the distribution coefficients (Kd) of these elements measured in batch experiments from the literature. For all three elements, the resulting average relative deviations from the experimental values are smaller than a factor of 2.5. This indicates that the model has the potential to significantly improve the predictions of radioecological models that normally use tabulated Kd values from the IAEA which are known to have large uncertainties. Using UNiSeCs II, the soil solution parameters most important for the partitioning of Am, Pu and Se are identified by single parameter variations.