Biogeochemical behaviour of plutonium and americium and geochemical modelling of the soil solution

Field observations suggest that plutonium and americium in the environment are present in very different chemical forms in the interstitial waters of an intertidal sediment. Themodynamic modelling using the PHREEQE code predicts that plutonium is present entirely in oxidation state (V) as the PuO2CO 3 − ion, whereas americium is present entirely in oxidation state (III), largely as the uncharged Am(OH)CO3 species, but with significant concentrations of the Am3+ and the AmSO 4 + ions. There are, however, differences between these predictions and others published for a very similar system which apparently arise from uncertainties in the thermodynamic data. Field data cannot resolve these differences unambiguously.