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Effects of ammonium ion and bentonite content on permeability of bentonite-clay mixture

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Abstract

Sanitary landfill is a common method for the treatment of municipal solid waste. The landfill leachate contains a large amount of NH4+, which will affect the physicochemical properties of bentonite, and subsequently change the anti-seepage function of the bentonite enhanced cutoff wall. The permeability tests were carried out on bentonite-clay mixed soil infiltrated by the ammonium salt solutions using a head pressure control permeameter. The results show that saturated permeability coefficient of the bentonite-clay mixture increases with the decrease of bentonite content and with the increase of NH4+ concentration. Moreover, the reasonable mass content of bentonite is about 10% if the studied bentonite-clay mixture are used in vertical cutoff wall. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) measurements were conducted on the bentonite-clay mixed soil samples with different bentonite contents, and samples infiltrated by the ammonium salt solutions with different concentrations, and afterwards the variations of the micro pore structure and pore-size distribution were obtained. Connecting the Donnan osmotic pressure with saturated permeability of bentonite-clay mixed soils, the effect mechanism of bentonite content and ammonium solution concentration on the permeability of the bentonite-clay mixture was analyzed.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFC1520500), the National Sciences Foundation of China (Grant No. 41977214, 41572284 and 41772300) for the financial supports.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, People’s Republic of China

    Wen-Jing Sun, Gang Xu, Wen-Jie Zhang & De-An Sun

  2. Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, People’s Republic of China

    Wen-Jing Sun

  3. Pudong New Area Construction (Group) Co., LTD, Shanghai, 200136, People’s Republic of China

    Guang Wei

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  1. Wen-Jing Sun
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  2. Gang Xu
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  3. Guang Wei
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Correspondence to Wen-Jie Zhang.

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Sun, WJ., Xu, G., Wei, G. et al. Effects of ammonium ion and bentonite content on permeability of bentonite-clay mixture. Environ Earth Sci 80, 151 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-021-09440-w

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