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Recovery of Coal Tar and Creosote from Porous Media: The Influence of Wettability
Author(s) -
Hugaboom Daniel A.,
Powers Susan E.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
groundwater monitoring and remediation
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.677
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1745-6592
pISSN - 1069-3629
DOI - 10.1111/j.1745-6592.2002.tb00774.x
Subject(s) - wetting , coal tar , creosote , environmental remediation , surface tension , pulmonary surfactant , viscosity , contact angle , porous medium , chemistry , petroleum engineering , porosity , chemical engineering , coal , environmental science , environmental engineering , waste management , materials science , environmental chemistry , geology , composite material , contamination , organic chemistry , thermodynamics , engineering , ecology , physics , biology
The recovery of coal tar or creosote, which are dense nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPLs), from the subsurface has been used as a means of site remediation at several former manufactured‐gas plant sites and wood‐treating facilities. Surface‐active components in these complex DNAPL can have acid/base and surfactant characteristics that can significantly affect the wettability in these systems, with a reversal to DNAPL wetting at low pHs. These changes in wettability as a function of pH were employed to evaluate their significance on waterflooding efficiency in one‐dimensional soil columns. The use of pH as a means of controlling wettability resulted in identical density and viscosity properties between the water‐and DNAPL‐wet conditions. At some of the higher pHs, the interracial tension changed as well as the wettability. Maintaining a constant dimensionless capillary number was used to minimize the effect of this variable. DNAPL saturations remaining in the DNAPL‐wet systems after waterflooding ranged from 38% to 47%. Significantly lower final DNAPL saturations were achieved for water‐wetting systems (15% to 30%).