Premium
Elimination of the Reaction Rate “Scale Effect”: Application of the Lagrangian Reactive Particle‐Tracking Method to Simulate Mixing‐Limited, Field‐Scale Biodegradation at the Schoolcraft (MI, USA) Site
Author(s) -
Ding Dong,
Benson David A.,
FernàndezGarcia Daniel,
Henri Christopher V.,
Hyndman David W.,
Phanikumar Mantha S.,
Bolster Diogo
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1002/2017wr021103
Subject(s) - pseudomonas stutzeri , reaction rate , lagrangian particle tracking , eulerian path , environmental science , biodegradation , particle (ecology) , groundwater , mixing (physics) , tracer , plume , scale (ratio) , soil science , aquifer , materials science , biological system , mechanics , chemistry , lagrangian , geotechnical engineering , thermodynamics , geology , computational fluid dynamics , mathematics , physics , bacteria , oceanography , mathematical physics , biology , paleontology , biochemistry , quantum mechanics , nuclear physics , catalysis , organic chemistry
Measured (or empirically fitted) reaction rates at groundwater remediation sites are typically much lower than those found in the same material at the batch or laboratory scale. The reduced rates are commonly attributed to poorer mixing at the larger scales. A variety of methods have been proposed to account for this scaling effect in reactive transport. In this study, we use the Lagrangian particle‐tracking and reaction (PTR) method to simulate a field bioremediation experiment at the Schoolcraft, MI site. A denitrifying bacterium, Pseudomonas Stutzeri strain KC (KC), was injected to the aquifer, along with sufficient substrate, to degrade the contaminant, carbon tetrachloride (CT), under anaerobic conditions. The PTR method simulates chemical reactions through probabilistic rules of particle collisions, interactions, and transformations to address the scale effect (lower apparent reaction rates for each level of upscaling, from batch to column to field scale). In contrast to a prior Eulerian reaction model, the PTR method is able to match the field‐scale experiment using the rate coefficients obtained from batch experiments.