Hydraulic Conductivity of Polymerized Bentonite-Amended Backfills
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 140, Issue 3
Abstract
The potential for chemical incompatibility between soil-bentonite (SB) backfills of vertical cutoff walls composed of conventional (chemically unmodified) sodium bentonite (CSB) and contaminated groundwater has led to evaluation of chemically modified bentonites for improved chemical resistance. Accordingly, the hydraulic conductivity to tap water () and to solutions () of SB backfills amended with a polymerized bentonite known as bentonite polymer nanocomposite (BPN) were measured and compared with those for a traditional backfill composed of CSB. The BPN was used both as a dry amendment and as the constituent in the bentonite slurry. Three backfills were evaluated, viz, clean silica sand amended with either 2 or 5% dry BPN and mixed with 2% BPN slurry (i.e., 2BPN2 and 5BPN2, respectively), and the same sand amended with 5% dry CSB and mixed with 5% CSB slurry (5CSB5). Based on permeation with 50 mM , the ratio varied in the order of , such that the 5BPN2 backfill performed the worst in terms of chemical resistance. However, because for the 5BPN2 backfill ranged from approximately two to four orders of magnitude lower than that of the other backfills, the final for the 5BPN2 backfill of was the lowest among the three backfills and was almost two orders of magnitude lower than that for the 5CSB5 backfill of , despite an overall lower total bentonite content for the 5BPN2 backfill (i.e., 5.5 versus 7.1%). Thus, for the permeant liquids and materials used in this study, the overall hydraulic performance of the backfill containing 5% dry BPN was significantly better than that of the backfill containing 5% dry CSB.
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Acknowledgments
Financial support for this project, a collaboration among Colorado State University, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), and Colloid Environmental Technologies Company (CETCO), was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Arlington, Virginia, under Grant No. CMMI-0757815. The opinions expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and are not necessarily consistent with the policies or opinions of the NSF. The authors thank CETCO for providing the bentonites used in this study, the assistance of all the collaborators, including Craig Benson, Tuncer Edil, and Joe Scalia at UW-Madison, Mike Donovan and Jerry Darlington of CETCO, and Mike Malusis of Bucknell University for the use of the mini-slump cone.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 140 • Issue 3 • March 2014
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© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 18, 2012
Accepted: Aug 28, 2013
Published online: Nov 27, 2013
Published in print: Mar 1, 2014
Discussion open until: Apr 27, 2014
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