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Laboratory Characterization of Surfactant-Enhanced Air Sparging Effectiveness on VOC-Contaminated Soil with Low Permeability

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Abstract

Surfactant-enhanced air sparging (SEAS) technology has been widely accepted to remediate VOC-contaminated soil with medium or high permeability, while the remediation efficiency and mechanism in low permeability soil have been rarely explored, which is of great importance to the field implementation due to the heterogeneous stratigraphic distribution at site. For this purpose, the surfactant-enhanced single air channel sparging tests and solubilization/desorption tests are comprehensively designed and performed in this study. Results showed that the exhaust gaseous MTBE concentration is significantly lower, and the time to reach concentration equilibrium is longer for air sparging in low permeability soil, which could be modified with surfactant incorporation. The reduced MTBE concentration, enlarged remediation zone, and the total MTBE removal rate in the low permeability soil could be observed after implementing the SEAS technology and will be further enhanced with sparging pressure increasing. The mass transfer zone (MTZ) in low permeability soil is enlarged with the increased surfactant concentration, based on which an exponential growth relation is established for MTZ quantitative prediction. The improved remediation efficiency of SEAS technology on low permeability soil is confirmed to be controlled by the contaminant solubilization/desorption mechanism, rather than the surface tension reduction mechanism that was conventionally confirmed in medium or high permeability soil.

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Availability of Data and Materials

The datasets and materials used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant No. 2020YFC1808101, National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant Nos. 42030710, 41807239, 41877262, and Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China, under Grant No. JZ2020HGTB0055.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resource and Environmental Engineering, Hefei University of Technology, No. 193, Tunxi Road, Hefei, 230009, China

    Fusheng Zha, Haonan Li, Long Xu & Bo Kang

  2. Anhui Huizi Construction Engineering Co., Ltd, Wuhu, 241005, China

    Xianguo Sun

Authors
  1. Fusheng Zha
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  2. Haonan Li
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  3. Long Xu
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  4. Bo Kang
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  5. Xianguo Sun
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Contributions

FZ: supervision, writing—original draft preparation; HL: investigation, data curation; LX: conceptualization, supervision; BK: methodology, visualization; XS: resources, validation

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Correspondence to Long Xu.

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Zha, F., Li, H., Xu, L. et al. Laboratory Characterization of Surfactant-Enhanced Air Sparging Effectiveness on VOC-Contaminated Soil with Low Permeability. Water Air Soil Pollut 233, 26 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11270-021-05495-4

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