Retardation of Nonlinearly Sorbed Solutes in Porous Media
Publication: Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 133, Issue 12
Abstract
The impact of the assumption of linear sorption on retardation of nonlinearly sorbed solutes in porous media is numerically explored in this paper. Breakthrough data of nonlinearly sorbed solutes are generated using the BIO1D simulation code along with the Freundlich-type nonlinear sorption model. Retardation coefficients from generated breakthrough curves are estimated using first-moment analysis. Variations of with experimental conditions revealed that of a nonlinearly sorbed solute is a function of the input concentration, the injection period and the pore-water velocity but is independent of the length scale. This study also showed that it is appropriate to estimate of a nonlinearly sorbed solute using a linearized isotherm if all soil particles experience sorption with liquid concentration equal to the induced concentration. Otherwise, the estimated linearized will be either under- or overestimated depending on the applied experimental conditions and Freundlich parameters. The study further revealed that inability to account for sorption nonlinearity may in some cases erroneously be interpreted as evidence of the presence of transport nonequilibrium. A method is suggested to determine nonlinear sorption parameters from miscible displacement experiments.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by the Research Affairs Office at the UAE University under Contract No. UNSPECIFIED03-01-7-11/04. The writer greatly acknowledges the effort made by Ala’a Alawi in preparing processors to handle the data generated by BIO1D. Thanks are also due to Khaled Zu’bi for running some of the presented simulation cases and to Stephen Aston for editing the manuscript.
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Published In
Journal of Environmental Engineering
Volume 133 • Issue 12 • December 2007
Pages: 1080 - 1087
Copyright
© 2007 ASCE.
History
Received: Apr 7, 2006
Accepted: Jan 8, 2007
Published online: Dec 1, 2007
Published in print: Dec 2007
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