Presentation materials
Graphene oxide nanoparticles (GONPs) are promising materials for the adsorption of a broad set of environmentally relevant contaminants, such as organic aromatic compounds, heavy metals, dye molecules, pharmaceuticals (Iqbal and Abdala, 2013; Zhou et al., 2016). Moreover, thanks to their small size, GONPs can be injected in the subsurface and effectively migrate within groundwater (Beryani et...
This study aims to investigate the mobility and entrapment of zero-valent iron nanoparticles (nZVI) in porous media at a pore-scale, using synchrotron X-ray microtomography (CT). As the dynamics of fluid flow in porous media is a fast process, benchtop CT scanners are unable to capture the details of this process, thus requiring high time resolution only made possible by synchrotron...
PFAS are emergent contaminants of which the fate and transport in the environment remain poorly understood. A growing body of site investigations have demonstrated that vadose zones serve as significant long-term sources of PFAS to contaminate groundwater. Quantifying PFAS leaching in the vadose zone and mass discharge to groundwater is therefore critical for characterizing, managing, and...
The understanding of the transport of nanoparticles (NP’s) in saturated porous media is key during nanoremediation technology. There is a gap in knowledge regarding the processes occurring at the pore scale for a successful nanoremediation technique to be applied at larger scales (Pak et al., 2020). NP (e.g., zero-valent iron) transport mechanism at the pore scale is studied in a...
Manganese (Mn) biomineralization is a ubiquitous biogeochemical process with promising applications for in situ bioremediation of contaminated soils and sediments. This process involves the enzymatic oxidation of aqueous Mn(II) to form reactive solid-phase Mn(III)/Mn(IV) oxides that aggregate around Mn-oxidizing bacteria. This transformation can immobilize Mn from flowing groundwater, and...
Permeable reactive barrier (PRB) is considered one of the most effective in-situ alternatives for the remediation of contaminated groundwater and Granular Activated Carbon (GAC) a very performable material used in PRB systems. PRB reduced longevity due to a GAC saturation is the major problem affecting full-scale treatments (Ghaeminia and Mokhtarani, 2018). Landfill disposal of exhausted GAC...
Less cleanup efficiency or sweep efficiency is a significant challenge in a variety of applications such as groundwater remediation, CO2 sequestration, hydrogen geological storage, and enhanced oil recovery. Two key factors in the miscible displacements are the viscous fingering (VF) and fluid retention. The VF happens when a less-viscous fluid displaces a more-viscous one. While leading to...
Non-aqueous phase liquid (NAPL) trapped in stagnant regions such as dead-end fractures and rock matrix are hard to remediate because they are inaccessible by groundwater flow. Recent studies showed the potential of bioremediation technologies that utilize the chemotactic motility of bacteria [1-3]. However, such methods rely on diffusion and dissolution of contaminants from NAPL to an aqueous...
Permeability & compressibility structures in aquifers are critical for predicting fluid flow behavior as well as utilizing and managing subsurface fluid resources. In conventional pressure-based well testing methods, formation investigation by the packer testing is difficult to operate and only the properties of thick sections can be acquired. In this study, based on the results of a field...
