Insights on nano-scale flow and interactive transportation of hazardous pollutants under supercritical fluid environment

Abstract

This perspective paper aims to spark a fundamental debate on the key laws that would combine the nano- to micro-scale flow dynamics of resident contaminants in soil systems under supercritical phase-assisted transportation. The rank of supercritical solvents (SCFs) for hazardous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylenes is deeply discussed beside its confines to meet the current requests of in situ/ex situ fields. The scaling behaviors during soil–pollutants–SCFs interactions are highlighted to underline the hidden laws behind the basic transportation under flooding remediation. A new strategy based on artificial intelligence learning is emphasized with a demonstrative sample to predict the solubility behavior of this kind of contaminants during a spatiotemporal mechanism. This debate illustrates the conjugate experimental and numerical pathways to deal with the complex nano-remediation dynamics and sheds the light on the current trends and future outlook with techno-economic concerns to promote the faith of a clean and sustainable environment.