Desiccation of Porous Media to Limit Contaminant Migration
EMSL Project ID
24992
Abstract
The primary attribute of soil desiccation is the removal of excess moisture from the subsurface, thereby reducing potential downward migration of water and contaminant solutes within the vadose zone and providing a storage capacity for downward migration induced by surface infiltration of water. In combination with surface flux control, the technique can be used to immobilize contamination by reducing the aqueous phase permeability. The purpose of the proposed research is to improve the understanding of the soil desiccation process, address key technical concerns, and provide data sets to test and verify multiphase simulators. The proposed experiments consist of a series of intermediate-scale column and flow cell experiments, to be conducted in the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory's (EMSL) Subsurface Flow and Transport Laboratory (SFTL). The SFTL has two recently constructed flow cells that are specifically designed for soil desiccation experiments with either constant temperature or zero energy flux boundary conditions. The SFTL's dual-energy gamma system will be used to determine moisture contents and inserted probes will be used to measure temperature and humidity simultaneously.
Project Details
Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Start Date
2007-06-01
End Date
2010-09-30
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator
Team Members