Identification and characterization of conservative organic tracers for use as hydrologic tracers for the Yucca Mountain Site Characterization Study; Progress report, June 1--December 31, 1990

Ground water tracers are solutes dissolved in or carried by ground water to delineate flow pathways. Tracers provide information on direction and speed of water movement and that of contaminants that might be conveyed by the water. Tracers can also be used to measure effective porosity, hydraulic conductivity, dispersivity and solute distribution coefficients. For most applications tracers should be conservative, that is, move at the same rate as the water and not sorb to aquifer materials. Tracers must have a number of properties to be functional. Regardless of the desired properties, the chemical and physical behavior of a tracer in ground water and the porous medium under study must be understood. Good estimates of tracer behavior can be obtained from laboratory studies. Studies in this proposal will address tracer properties with analytical method development, static sorption and degradation studies and column transport studies, Mutagenicity tests will be performed on promising candidates. The tracers that will be used for these experiments are fluorinated organic acids and other organic compounds that have the chemical and biological stability necessary to be effective in the Yucca Mountain environment. Special emphasis will be placed on compounds that fluoresce or have very large ultraviolet absorption coefficients for very high analytical sensitivity