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Remediation of saturated Shanghai sandy silt contaminated with p-xylene using air sparging

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Abstract

Air sparging is an effective technique for the remediation of soil and groundwater polluted by volatile organic compounds. In this paper, this technique was investigated by conducting air-sparging test in the laboratory on the Shanghai sandy silt that was artificially contaminated with p-xylene. A test tank was designed for this purpose. During the air-sparging process, aqueous p-xylene solutions were extracted from the observation holes, and their concentrations were quantified by the spectrophotometric detection method. The mechanism of mass transfer process of p-xylene in the vicinity of sparging well and the remediation of the contaminated groundwater by air sparging were explored. The results showed that the removal zone of the p-xylene was mainly located within a radius of about 20 cm around the air injection well, with 90 % p-xylene removed after 20-day air sparging. Within the initial 5-day sparging, the concentration of p-xylene decreased rapidly in the mass transfer zone. By contrast, in the area far from the injection well, the p-xylene concentration decreased evenly and slowly. Thus, the remediation of contaminated soil and groundwater by air sparging is space–time dependent. For further analysis, the adsorption of silt was taken into account, and the distribution coefficient, K d , was introduced to the modified Shackleford’s mass transfer model. The comparison between the simulated and measured results indicates that the modified model can satisfactorily describe the p-xylene mass transfer observed in this study.

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Acknowledgments

Financial supports from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (40802064 and 41030748), the Innovation Program of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission (12ZZ032), the Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (B308), the Scientific Research Fund of Hunan Provincial Education Department (11A010) and Kwang-Hua Fund for College of Civil Engineering, Tongji University are gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Geotechnical & Underground Engineering of Ministry of Education and Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai, 200092, People’s Republic of China

    Yong-Gui Chen, Wei-Min Ye, Bao Chen & Yu-Jun Cui

  2. School of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Changsha University of Science and Technology, 960 Section II, South Wanjiali Road, Changsha, 410114, People’s Republic of China

    Yong-Gui Chen

  3. Shanghai Geotechnical Investigations & Design Institute Co. Ltd, 681 Xiaomuqiao Road, Shanghai, 200002, People’s Republic of China

    Zi-Jun Xie

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  1. Yong-Gui Chen
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  2. Wei-Min Ye
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  3. Zi-Jun Xie
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  4. Bao Chen
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Correspondence to Wei-Min Ye.

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Chen, YG., Ye, WM., Xie, ZJ. et al. Remediation of saturated Shanghai sandy silt contaminated with p-xylene using air sparging. Nat Hazards 62, 1005–1020 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0129-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-012-0129-1

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