Transport of heavy metal contaminants in a composite liner under non-isothermal condition

Abstract

A mathematical model for the transport of heavy metal contaminants (HMCs) in a triple-layer composite liner with defective geomembrane under the non-isothermal condition is developed in this study, where the GMB/GCL/CCL (geomembrane, geosynthetic clay liner and compacted clay liner) composite liner is adopted as an example and the Langmuir adsorption model is incorporated. The proposed model is solved by the finite difference approach, and its correctness is validated by comparison with the experimental results, an existing analytical solution and another numerical method. Later, the transport behaviours of HMCs are explored with the established model. Compared with the isothermal condition, the non-isothermal condition enlarges the transport flux, but also reduces the concentration of HMCs. The relative concentration based on the Langmuir adsorption model is higher than that based on the linear adsorption model, which is related to the decrease of the retardation factor under the Langmuir adsorption model. Furthermore, the parametric study shows that when the leachate head  ht is between 1.0 and 3.0 m, the defined breakthrough time tb increases by about 1.57 a with the increase of GCL thickness lg by 1 cm, and the tb increases by about 9.07 a with the increase of CCL thickness lc by 0.1 m.