Overview of the clay mineralogy studies presented at the ‘Clays in natural and engineered barriers for radioactive waste confinement’ meeting, Montpellier, October 2012

Abstract

The present special issue of Clay Minerals contains 19 full papers of scientific studies presented at the 5th conference on “Clays in natural and engineered barriers for radioactive waste confinement” held at Montpellier 2012. Since 2002, ANDRA, the French National Radioactive Waste Management Agency, developed this conference into the most important event for all kinds of scientists from all over the world dealing with the disposal of highly and longlived radioactive waste (HLRW). With these conferences, ANDRA contributed significantly to the outstanding scientific level of European research in this field. Therefore, Clay Minerals is happy to be able to provide the present compilation of recent HLRW disposal research articles in clay mineralogy. The 19 papers published in this special Montpellier 2012 issue were classified according to different areas within the field of HLRW disposal research.