The new electronic database of the NEA Thermochemical Database Project

The Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) Thermochemical Database Project (TDB) represents a reference point with regard to high standard thermochemical data for the radioactive waste management community. During the last three years, work was carried out to renew the electronic database that stores the large quantity of data that have been derived from the Project along its lifetime. The new TDB electronic database was designed and developed under the auspices of the Nuclear Energy Agency Databank and the TDB Project with the aim of building a robust architecture for storage of the TDB selected thermodynamic data that would be distinguished for a sound consistency check structure, adaptable to future improvements and also flexibility of use for the end users. More importantly, one of the main goals was to deliver the database in a format compatible with speciation calculation codes, PHREEQC being the initial target. The database was released in 2018 and this article describes in detail the conceptual and technical structure as well as the content of the new system, but also includes an application exercise that provides a good illustration of the PHREEQC-formatted database capabilities.