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Lab-evaluation of applicability selected hydrogeological tracers in physical/chemical conditions

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Abstract

In this research, the effects of a number of physical/chemical factors such as pH, sunlight, temperature, and salinity, as well as adsorption in porous media on the applicability of selected groundwater tracers are evaluated. Tracers from different categories as fluorescent dye tracers (uranine, eosin, and rhodamine B), chemical salts (NaCl and KCl), and non-fluorescent dye tracer (KMnO4) have been tested. This research was conducted in the laboratory. The results show that uranine losses its florescence in acid environments, while in alkaline conditions its florescence increases. The results also show that due to photochemical decay, eosin is the most unstable tracer if subjected to sunlight. KMnO4 turns to brown under sunlight and high temperature conditions, and may lose its usefulness as a tracer. Results also confirm that the fluorescence intensity of rhodamine B decreases with increasing temperature and/or salinity. Uranine and eosin have high resistance against high temperature and salinity conditions. An important factor in ground water tracing is adsorption of tracer in porous media environment. Our research show that rhodamine B would easily adsorb to fine grain porous media, while uranine and eosin are of high resistance against adsorption; KMnO4 is adsorbed easily too.

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Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank Water Resources Institute of Iran, Office of Applied Research for financially supporting this research coded WRE-82097.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Water Research Institute, Ministry of Energy, Tehran, Iran

    Fateme Jafari

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, Swiss Geotechnical Commission, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Werner P. Balderer

  3. Geo9 Groundwater Explorers, Perth, Australia

    Hamid R. Jahani

  4. Tehran University, Tehran, Iran

    Saman Javadi

Authors
  1. Fateme Jafari
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  2. Werner P. Balderer
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  3. Hamid R. Jahani
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  4. Saman Javadi
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Correspondence to Fateme Jafari.

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Jafari, F., Balderer, W.P., Jahani, H.R. et al. Lab-evaluation of applicability selected hydrogeological tracers in physical/chemical conditions. Arab J Geosci 8, 3811–3819 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-014-1428-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-014-1428-5

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