Predicting Solute Flux through a Clay Membrane Barrier
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 130, Issue 5
Abstract
Measured solute flux breakthrough curves (FBCs) from column tests performed on a semipermeable clay membrane subjected to KCl solutions are compared with predicted FBCs using independently measured flow and transport properties. The predicted FBCs are based on three scenarios: (1) Advective–dispersive transport that neglects membrane behavior; (2) advective–dispersive transport that accounts for the concentration dependency of the effective salt-diffusion coefficient resulting from membrane behavior, referred to as partially coupled transport; and (3) fully coupled transport that includes both the explicit coupling terms (e.g., hyperfiltration, chemico-osmosis) associated with clay membrane behavior and the concentration dependency of The FBCs predicted by fully coupled transport agree best with the measured FBCs. However, for the diffusion-controlled conditions of the column tests, the steady-state solute fluxes predicted by partially coupled transport are only 23–69% higher than the measured steady-state fluxes. The results imply that the advective–dispersive transport theory can be used to provide reasonably accurate, albeit somewhat conservative, estimates of steady-state solute flux through clays that behave as semipermeable membranes, provided diffusion is a significant, if not dominant, solute transport process and the concentration dependency of are taken into account.
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Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 130 • Issue 5 • May 2004
Pages: 477 - 487
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 17, 2003
Accepted: Jul 24, 2003
Published online: Apr 15, 2004
Published in print: May 2004
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