Alpha dose rate and decay dose impacts on the long-term alteration of HLW nuclear glasses

Abstract In the prospect of deep geological disposal, the long-term behavior of high-level nuclear glasses has to be investigated regarding alpha radiation induced by long-life minor actinides. The present study focuses on the effects of alpha radiation on the long-term chemical reactivity of R7T7-type glasses, by separately considering the alpha dose rate and the alpha decay dose. Old SON68 glasses doped with 238/239 PuO 2 or 244 CmO 2 were studied to simulate high alpha dose rates corresponding to an early water ingress and a high level of alpha decay doses corresponding to long-term disposal conditions. A part of the 238/239 Pu-doped glass block was annealed to fully recover the irradiation-induced damage accumulated since the glass was fabricated and to dissociate the effect of the alpha dose rate from that of the alpha decay dose. The glasses were then leached under static conditions at 90 °C for several years. The results showed that the residual alteration rate is not affected by the alpha dose rate over a wide range of dose rate values expected under disposal conditions: this glass remained relatively insensitive to the alpha radiolysis phenomena at the glass–water interface. However, over the duration of the experiments, the residual alteration rate of the damaged 238/239 Pu-doped glass was enhanced compared to that of the annealed glass. This result is in agreement with those obtained on the 244 Cm-doped glass and with reported values in the literature on simplified externally irradiated glasses, indicating that the ballistic effects of the recoil nuclei are responsible for this increase in the residual alteration rate.