Simulation of the environmental fate and transport of chemical signatures from buried landmines

摘要

The fate and transport of chemical signature molecules that emanate from buried landmines is strongly influenced by physical chemical properties and by environmental conditions of the specific chemical compounds. Published data have been evaluated as the input parameters that are used in the simulation of the fate and transport processes. A one-dimensional model developed for screening agricultural pesticides was modified and used to simulate the appearance of a surface flux above a buried landmine and estimate the subsurface total concentration. The physical chemical properties of TNT cause a majority of the mass released to the soil system to be bound to the solid phase soil particles. The majority of the transport occurs in the liquid phase with diffusion and evaporation driven advection of soil water as the primary mechanisms for the flux to the ground surface. The simulations provided in this report should only be used for initial conceptual designs of chemical pre-concentration subsystems or complete detection systems. The physical processes modeled required necessary simplifying assumptions to allow for analytical solutions.