Coupling Between Flow and Precipitation in Heterogeneous Subsurface Environments and Effects On Contaminant Fate and Transport. Annual Report 2006

摘要

Reactive mixing fronts can occur at large scales, e.g. when chemical amendments are injected in wells, or at small scales (pore-scales) when reactive intermediates are being generated in situ at grain boundaries, cell surfaces and adjacent to biofilms. The product of the reactions such as mineral precipitates, biofilms or filtered colloids modifies permeability leading to the complex coupling between flow and reactions and precipitation. The objectives are to determine how precipitates are distributed within large and small scale mixing fronts, how permeability and flow is modified by precipitation, how the mobility of a representative contaminant, strontium, is affected by the precipitation of carbonates, and how subsequent dissolution of the carbonates result in mobilization of Sr and increased flow. The desired outcomes of the project are to help develop methods leading to sequestration of metal contaminants, and to determine how macroscopic field-scale modeling can be applied to predict the outcome of remediation activities.