Lumped Approach for Reactive Transport of Organic Compound Mixtures through Simulated Aquifer Sands in Lab-Scale Column Tests

Abstract

The feasibility of the lumped approach for reactive transport of 12 organic compounds in mixtures through simulated aquifer sands with different organic carbon content (foc) within soil columns was evaluated. From direct measurements of effluent samples and temporal and spatial pore-water concentration profiles within soil columns, 12 organic compounds in mixtures were sorbed to different extents due to the different dependence of sorption on foc. Considering the tradeoff between accuracy and simplicity, four, five, and six pseudocompounds were determined for simulated aquifer sands with foc of 0.006%, 0.051%, and 0.221%, respectively, to approximate the reactive transport of 12 organic compounds in mixtures. Each pseudocompound presented obviously different reactive transport behavior in terms of both sorption capacity and nonlinearity, indicating that each pseudocompound contained components with relatively similar sorption capacities and nonlinearity. Similar to the results from batch equilibrium sorption tests, log Koc can be used as the a priori grouping criterion, although the relative contributions of different forces to the overall sorption may differ for different composition of organic mixtures and foc values of aquifer sands. Finally, the assignment of the Freundlich sorption parameters of pseudocompounds using averages of Freundlich sorption parameters of their components led to reasonable prediction for reactive transport of organic compounds in mixtures through the soil columns. Further study is warranted to evaluate the effective coupling between lumped approach and reactive transport model using complex multicomponent mixtures within heterogeneous subsurface systems.