Evaluation of petroleum impacts on some properties of loamy sand soil with the main focus on hydraulic properties

Abstract

In recent years, petroleum products and byproducts have been widely used chemicals in soil habitats, which change the soil properties and quality of groundwater due to solubility, volatility and biodegradability of these pollutants. The aim of this research was to investigate the impacts of kerosene and gas oil pollutants on the breakthrough curve (BTC), soil water retention curve (SWRC) and some physical and chemical properties of the laboratorycontaminated soils. For this purpose, some water-saturated soils were artificially contaminated in the pulse condition inside some glass cylinders by applying half and one pore volume of these pollutants. Furthermore, parametric investigations of the soil retention curves were performed using RETC software by Van Genukhten, and Brooks-Corey equations in the various suctions and the soil properties were determined before and after pollution during a 3-month period. The BTC revealed that kerosene flowed out of the soil with a sharper gradient and greater velocity than gas oil, especially on introduction of one volume of kerosene (triple times more than the 0.5 volume). The RETC results regarding the Van Genukhten model demonstrated slightly lower water-holding capacity in the contaminated samples than the unpolluted one. Contamination not only diminished the saturation moisture (H s ), but also reduced the residual moisture (H r ) and the SWRC gradient (n), while BrooksCorey equation represented only one set of data for all conditions. It can be concluded that all apparent physical and chemical properties of soil have been changed by spill of petroleum hydrocarbon on the soil surface. Evaluation of both equations demonstrated more accurate prediction of the SWRC's parameter by Van Genukhten compared to Brooks-Corey. The results of this research can be generalizable for the assessment of petroleum pollution impacts on the quality and changes of soil properties in terms of pulse contamination for approximately the same condition on a wider scale.

Transport of E. coli in saturated and unsaturated porous media: effect of physiological state and substrate availability

“…More importantly, even though the soil column was packed homogeneously to start with, this homogeneity might have been lost due to bacterial deposition during the course of experiment. Several earlier studies have indicated that contaminant load could alter the hydraulic and geotechnical characteristics of clayey and sandy soils [54,55]. In the saturated flow experiments, bacterial deposition might have altered the porosity of the system, and therefore, the pore velocity and depositional rate constants.…”

Leaching Treatment Method of Petroleum Hydrocarbon Pollution in Farming Land for Ecological Protection in China

“…There are lots of studies about the solubilisation of PAH (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, PAH) and other insoluble organic pollutants by surfactants (Li et al, 2014;Yang et al, 2015;Janajreh et al, 2018). Edwards et al focused on the solubilization of PAHs by Brij30, Igepal CA-720, Tergitol NP-10 and Triton X-100 (Mortazavi et al, 2013;Fallah et al, 2015). The concept of molar solubilization ratio (Molar Solubilization Ratio, MSR) is proposed to describe the solubilization of surfactant solution quantitatively, as shown in Eq.…”

Crude Oil Contaminated Sites: Evaluation by Using Risk Assessment Approach

“…The source-pathway-receptor is a wide-spread concept in human health risk assessment of contaminated sites [13][14][15][16][17][18][19]. There are different methodologies for assessing the impact of anthropogenic pollution on a given site [20][21][22][23]. Thus, specific literature shows that, in order to manage the contaminated sites based on the protection of receptors and the environment, each country developed its own system.…”