(511s) The Effect Of Non-Ideal Gas Condition On The Dynamic Of Air Sparging For Soil Remediation Design

Air injection to soil for remediation purposes has been identified as a versatile application associated to various hydrocarbons clean up technologies, i.e. Air Sparging, Air Venting, Soil Vapor Extraction, Bio-venting, etc. A common practice among modelers of this operation is to simplify the non linearity of the mathematical problem by considering air as incompressible. This contribution focuses on the study of the effect that such assumption may have on the dynamic of the air injection process. In consequence, a comparison between pressure profile predictions along depth is made for the cases of ideal and non-ideal consideration. The compressibility of the gas phase has been modeled using a cubic version of the Virial equation in combination with the Redlich and Kwong model. The non linear nature of the resulting transient state mass balance model obligates a rigorous numerical solution of the system. The effects of different induced pressure on the pressure profile under ground are illustrated. The change in the dynamic response of the system under the stress of the pressure indicates the progressive movement of air mass thru the porous media. This non linear movement of fluid affected by temperature and pressure is analyzed.

This contribution highlights the main expected problems in achieving air injection. Moreover, this contribution corresponds to the first of two research effort targeting the modeling of a hypothetical dynamic system in which Electro-kinetic and Air Sparging techniques work together for soil cleaning. In particular, this first part deals with the non linear nature of a gaseous mix at transient state. The mass balance of such a system obligates a rigorous numerical solution of the differential model equation. The effects of different induced pressure at the soil surface are illustrated. The change in the dynamic response of the system under the stress of the pressure indicates the progressive movement of air mass thru the porous media. This non linear movement of fluid affected by temperature and pressure is not observed in electroosmotic flow. The best strategy for coupling the respective hydrodynamic and equilibrium phase equations has been used to identify the main expected problems in achieving clean up goals.