The technology that is being developed in Sweden for the disposal of high level nuclear waste calls for storage of the waste in copper canisters, which are encapsulated in a bentonite buffer contained in drill holes in the floors of drifts (tunnels) in a granitic rock repository. A controversial issue has arisen during the development of this technology: that copper, when in contact with pure water under anoxic conditions corrodes and hence is not immune as previously believed. This issue is resolved in the present paper by deriving corrosion domain diagrams as a means of presenting the thermodynamics of the system in the clearest form possible, when assessing the immunity and activation of copper.
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