Abstract
In this study, the effects of medium carbon chain alcohol (1-heptanol)-enhanced air sparging (AS) on the remediation of benzene-contaminated aquifers in different media (medium sand, channelized flow; gravel, bubbly flow) were investigated by comparison with a commonly used surfactant (sodium dodecylbenzene sulfonate (SDBS)). The results showed that the addition of 1-heptanol and SDBS significantly increased the air saturation in AS process under different airflow modes. Combined with water retention curves, 1-heptanol had the same effect on reducing the surface tension of groundwater and stabilizing bubbles as SDBS. In the study of benzene pollution removal, when the removal efficiency of the benzene pollutant exceeded 95%, the time required for surfactant-enhanced AS (SEAS) and alcohol-enhanced AS (AEAS) in medium sand was shortened by 28.6% and 52.4%, respectively, and the time required for SEAS and AEAS in gravel media was shortened by 16.7% and 58.3%, respectively, compared with the time required for AS. This finding indicated that the addition of SDBS or 1-heptanol could significantly increase the removal rate of benzene pollutants. Under the same surface tension conditions, the removal effect of 1-heptanol on the benzene pollutant was better than that of SDBS. This difference was due to the disturbance of the flow field during AEAS process causing the 1-heptanol on the gas-liquid interface to volatilize in the carrying gas, thereby inducing Marangoni convection on the interface, enhancing the gas-liquid mass transfer rate, and increasing the removal rate of benzene on the interface. Therefore, 1-heptanol is promising as a new reagent to enhance AS to remediate groundwater pollution.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adams JA, Reddy KR (1999) Laboratory study of air sparging of TCE-contaminated saturated soils and ground water. Ground Water Monit Remediat 19(3):182–190
Bass DH, Hastings NA, Brown RA (2000) Performance of air sparging systems: a review of case studies. J Hazard Mater 72(2):101–119
Behringer R, Zhang J, Oron A (2011) Novel pattern forming states for Marangoni convection in volatile binary liquids. Phys Fluids 23(7):072102
Ben Neriah A, Paster A (2016) Effect of temporal changes in air injection rate on air sparging performance groundwater remediation. Groundwater 54(6):851–860
Burns SE, Zhang M (2001) Effects of system parameters on the physical characteristics of bubbles produced through air sparging. Environ Sci Technol 35(1):204–208
Chao HP, LC H, HN T (2018) Increase in volatilization of organic compounds using air sparging through addition in alcohol in a soil-water system. J Hazard Mater 344:942–949
Faisal Anwar AHM, Bettahar M, Matsubayashi U (2000) A method for determining air–water interfacial area in variably saturated porous media. J Contam Hydrol 43(2):129–146
Fang W, Mao B, Liu S, Liu Z (2016) One-dimensional model test study of air flow patterns in common and surfactant-enhanced air sparging [M]. Geo-Chicago 329–339
Hebrard G, Zeng J, Loubiere K (2009) Effect of surfactants on liquid side mass transfer coefficients: a new insight. Chem Eng J 148(1):132–138
Hu L, Wu X, Liu Y, Meegoda JN, Gao S (2010) Physical modeling of air flow during air sparging remediation. Environ Sci Technol 44(10):3883–3888
Hu L, Meegoda JN, Du J, Gao S, Wu X (2011) Centrifugal study of zone of influence during air-sparging. J Environ Monit 13(9):2443–2449
Ji W, Dahmani A, Ahlfeld DP, Lin JD, Hill E (1993) Laboratory study of air sparging: air flow visualization. Ground Water Monit Rem 13(4):115–126
Kim H, Annable MD (2006) Effect of surface tension reduction on VOC removal during surfactant-enhanced air sparging. J Environ Sci Health A Tox Hazard Subst Environ Eng 41(12):2799–2811
Kim H, Soh HE, Annable MD, Kim DJ (2004) Surfactant-enhanced air sparging in saturated sand. Environ Sci Technol 38(4):1170–1175
Kim H, Choi KM, Moon JW, Annable MD (2006) Changes in air saturation and air-water interfacial area during surfactant-enhanced air sparging in saturated sand. J Contam Hydrol 88(1):23–35
Kim H, Kim J, Annable MD (2015) Changes in air flow patterns using surfactants and thickeners during air sparging: bench-scale experiments. J Contam Hydrol 172:1–9
Kim H, Ahn D, Annable MD (2016) Enhanced removal of VOCs from aquifers during air sparging using thickeners and surfactants: bench-scale experiments. J Contam Hydrol 184(5):25–34
Liu D, Tran T (2018) Vapor-induced attraction of floating droplets. J Phys Chem Lett 9(16):4771–4775
Lundegard PD, LaBrecque D (1995) Air sparging in a sandy aquifer (Florence, Oregon, U.S.A.): actual and apparent radius of influence. J Contam Hydrol 19(1):1–27
Ma Y, Yu G, Li HZ (2005) Note on the mechanism of interfacial mass transfer of absorption processes. Int J Heat Mass Transf 48(16):3454–3460
Marangoni C (1871) Ueber die Ausbreitung der Tropfen einer Flüssigkeit auf der Oberfläche einer anderen. Ann Phys 219(7):337–354
Marulanda C, Culligan PJ, Germaine JT (2000) Centrifuge modeling of air sparging — a study of air flow through saturated porous media. J Hazard Mater 72(2):179–215
Meyer (1902) Bénard H. Les tourbillons cellulaires dans une nappe liquide propageant de la chaleur par convection: en régime permanent[M]. Gauthier-Villars, 1901
Painmanakul P, Loubière K, Hébrard G, Mietton-Peuchot M, Roustan M (2005) Effect of surfactants on liquid-side mass transfer coefficients. Chem Eng Sci 60(22):6480–6491
Park B, Hwang G, Haam S, Lee C, Lee K, Ahn I-S (2008) Absorption of a volatile organic compound by a jet loop reactor with circulation of a surfactant solution: performance evaluation. J Hazard Mater 153(1):735–741
Pearson JRA (1958) On convection cells induced by surface tension. J Fluid Mech 4(5):489–500
Qin CY, Zhao YS, Li LL, Zheng W (2013a) Mechanisms of surfactant-enhanced air sparging in different media. Environ Lett 48(9):1047–1055
Qin CY, Zhao YS, Su Y, Zheng W (2013b) Remediation of nonaqueous phase liquid polluted sites using surfactant-enhanced air sparging and soil vapor extraction. Water Environ Res 85(2):133–140
Qu D, Ren H, Zhou R, Zhao Y (2017) Visualisation study on Pseudomonas migulae AN-1 transport in saturated porous media. Water Res 122:329–336
Rayleigh L (1916) On convection currents in a horizontal layer of fluid, when the higher temperature is on the under side. Philos Mag 32(187–92):529–546
Reddy KR, Adams JA (1998) System effects on benzene removal from saturated soils and ground water using air sparging. J Environ Eng 124(3):288–299
Reddy KR, Semer R, Adams JA (1999) Air flow optimization and surfactant enhancement to remediate toluene-contaminated saturated soils using air sparging. Environ Manag Health 10(1):52–63
Scriven LE, Sternling CV (1960) The Marangoni effects. Nature 187(4733):186–188
Sha Y, Chen H, Yin Y, Tu S, Ye L, Zheng Y (2010) Characteristics of the marangoni convection induced in initial quiescent water. Ind Eng Chem Res 49(18):8770–8777
Sharma RS, Mohamed MHA (2003) An experimental investigation of LNAPL migration in an unsaturated/saturated sand. Eng Geol 70(3):305–313
van Genuchten MT (1980) Closed-form equation for predicting the hydraulic conductivity of unsaturated soils. Soil Sci Soc Am J 44(5):892–898
Yuan Z, Herold KE (2001) Surface tension of pure water and aqueous lithium bromide with 2-ethyl-hexanol. Appl Therm Eng 21(8):881–897
Funding
The study was financially supported by the Key Project of National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41530636). We are extremely grateful to Key Laboratory of Groundwater Resources and Environment, Ministry of Education, Jilin University, Changchun 130021, China.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
ESM 1
(DOCX 1517 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Chang, Y., Yao, M., Bai, J. et al. Study on the effects of alcohol-enhanced air sparging remediation in a benzene-contaminated aquifer: a new insight. Environ Sci Pollut Res 26, 35140–35150 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06527-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-06527-7