Carbonation of alkali activated materials is one of the main deteriorations affecting their durability. However, current understanding of the structural alteration of these materials exposed to an environment inducing carbonation at the nano/micro scale remains limited. This study examined the evolution of phase assemblages of alkali activated slag mortars subjected to accelerated carbonation (1% CO, 60% relative humidity, up to 28 day carbonation) using XRD, FTIR and Si, Al, and Na MAS NMR.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRedox potential (Eh) measurements are widely used as indicators of the dominant reduction-oxidation reactions occurring underground. Yet, Eh data are mostly used in qualitative terms, as actual values cannot be used to distinguish uniquely the dominant redox processes at a sampling point and should therefore be combined with a detailed geochemical characterization of water samples. In this work, we have intensively characterized the redox potential of the first meter of soil in an infiltration pond recharged with river water using a set of sensors measuring every 12 min during a 1 year period.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrostructure strongly influences flow and transport properties of porous media. Flow and transport simulations within porous media, therefore, requires accurate three-dimensional (3D) models of the pore and solid phase structure. To date, no imaging method can resolve all relevant heterogeneities from the nano- to the centimeter scale within complex heterogeneous materials such as clay, reservoir rocks (e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSimulation of dissolution processes with a pore-scale reactive transport model increases insight in coupled chemical-physical-transport processes. However, modelling of dissolution process often requires a large number of time steps especially when the buffering capacity of solid phases is high. In this work we analyze the interplay between solid buffering on one hand and transport on the other.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUnsaturated column experiments were conducted with an undisturbed loamy sand soil to investigate the influence of flow interruption (FI) and ionic strength (IS) on the transport and retention of surfactant-stabilized silver nanoparticles (AgNP) and the results were compared to those obtained under continuous flow conditions. AgNP concentrations for breakthrough curves (BTCs) and retention profiles (RPs) were analyzed by ICP-MS. Experimental results were simulated by the numerical code HP1 (Hydrus-PhreeqC) with the DLVO theory, extended colloid filtration theory and colloid release model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFField application of livestock manure introduces colloids and veterinary antibiotics, e.g. sulfonamides (SAs), into farmland.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Pollut Res Int
November 2015
We present a sensitivity analysis of a reactive transport model of mercury (Hg) fate in contaminated soil systems. The one-dimensional model, presented in Leterme et al. (2014), couples water flow in variably saturated conditions with Hg physico-chemical reactions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Sci Pollut Res Int
November 2014
Soil systems are a common receptor of anthropogenic mercury (Hg) contamination. Soils play an important role in the containment or dispersion of pollution to surface water, groundwater or the atmosphere. A one-dimensional model for simulating Hg fate and transport for variably saturated and transient flow conditions is presented.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDecommissioning of nuclear building structures usually leads to large amounts of low level radioactive waste. Using a reliable method to determine the contamination depth is indispensable prior to the start of decontamination works and also for minimizing the radioactive waste volume and the total workload. The method described in this paper is based on geostatistical modeling of in situ gamma-ray spectroscopy measurements using the multiple photo peak method.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReactive transport modeling is a powerful tool to evaluate systems with complex geochemical relations. However, parameters are not always directly measurable. This study represents one of the first attempts to obtain hydrologic, transport and geochemical parameters from an experimental dataset involving transient unsaturated water flow and solute transport, using an automatic inverse optimization (or calibration) algorithm.
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