Modeling benzene NAPL removal during air sparging
Air sparging is a commonly used enhanced remedial tool for in-situ aquifer remediation. In an attempt to test assumptions commonly made in air sparging models, a lab-scale reactor with two isolated and controlled vertical channels of air through saturated porous media was used to study air sparging of a benzene NAPL under different airflow rates in the absence of retardation and groundwater flow. A simple dissolution-diffusion-volatilization (DDV) model was constructed to compare experimental results with the modeled results. Increasing the airflow rate from 45 mL/min to 125 mL/min had little to no effect on mass removal or the estimated volatilization or dissolution mass transfer rate constants when using a simple dissolution-diffusion-volatilization (DDV) model. This result was similar to that of many other researchers. The DDV model was, however unable to predict increased concentrations above the source zone in the aqueous phase. Furthermore, it produced predictions of a longer lag time for volatilization than experimentally determined. These results suggest that advection and dispersion may not only be solely caused by regional groundwater flow, but also momentum transfer from the advecting air.
- Research Organization:
- Iowa State Univ., Ames, IA (US)
- OSTI ID:
- 20014769
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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