Abstract
We analysed the asymptotic behaviour of breakthrough curves (BTCs) obtained after a single pulse injection in a 1D flow domain. Five different types of solute transport with nonequilibrium sorption were considered. The properties of the porous medium were assumed to be spatially constant. For long times, the concentration at a fixed position in time was found to decay like exp(−βt) where β depends on both the transport parameters and the parameters describing the nonequilibrium process. The results from the asymptotic analysis were compared with 1D numerical transport calculations. For all cases examined a good agreement between numerical calculations and the asymptotic analysis was found. The results from the asymptotic analysis provide an alternative way to determine transport and sorption related parameters from BTCs. The derived relationships between β and the model parameters are however only valid for large times. This requires that the very low concentrations need to be measured and not only the bulk mass, too. By either increasing or decreasing the velocity during BTC experiments additional asymptotic equations are obtained which can be used to determine the value of the model parameters. The results from the asymptotic analysis can also be used in standard inverse modelling techniques to either obtain good initial guesses or to reduce the parameter space. The fact that linear nonequilibrium processes decay like exp(−βt) can be used to qualitatively evaluate observed BTCs. The asymptotic analysis can also be easily extended to a larger class of transport problems (e.g. transport of solutes with microbial decay) provided that the overall transport problem remains linear in the concentration.
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Vereecken, H., Jaekel, U. & Georgescu, A. Asymptotic Analysis of Solute Transport with Linear Nonequilibrium Sorption in Porous Media. Transport in Porous Media 36, 189–210 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006553713516
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1006553713516