| Groundwater contamination, caused by the presence of dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs), remains a remediation challenge due to their low aqueous solubilities and residual phase immobility. To combat this challenge, the application of acoustic waves for remediation of water saturated porous media contaminated by DNAPL ganglia is proposed and investigated in this study.; Experiments are performed to first determine the effects of acoustic waves on the transport of a conservative tracer in a water-saturated column packed with glass beads. From resulting experimental tracer data, the addition of acoustic waves, in the frequency range between 60 to 245 Hz, to a steady background fluid flow (base case) is found to enhance solute transport compared to the base case. Furthermore, the effective velocity of the solute is approximately inversely proportional to the frequency of the acoustic wave.; Next, the effects of acoustic waves on the dissolution of trichloroethylene (TCE) DNAPL ganglia in a water saturated column, packed with glass beads are investigated. Acoustic waves with pressure amplitudes ranging from 0 to 1625 Pa and frequencies ranging from 0 to 285 Hz are employed to the interstitial fluid at the inlet of the packed column. Effluent dissolved TCE concentrations are observed to increase in the presence of acoustic pressure waves compared to the case where TCE dissolution without acoustic waves is monitored. The observed effluent dissolved TCE concentration increase is attributed to increased mass flux at the TCE-water interface, caused by acoustic waves. As an extension to the single component ganglia dissolution experiments, the impact of acoustic pressure waves on multicomponent DNAPL ganglia dissolution is also investigated. The multicomponent ganglia was composed of TCE and 1,1,2-trichloroethane (1,1,2-TCA) or TCE, 1,1,2-TCA, and tetrachloroethylene (PCE). Laboratory data from ganglia dissolution experiments with two and three component NAPL mixtures show that the greatest dissolution enhancement in the presence of acoustic waves is associated with the NAPL component having the smallest equilibrium aqueous solubility. Finally, square shaped acoustic waves are shown to lead to greater NAPL dissolution enhancement compared to sinusoidal and triangular acoustic waves.; Finally, a pore network consisting of a monolayer of glass beads is used to investigate the effects of acoustic waves on the dissolution and mobilization of perchlorethylene (PCE) ganglia. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
