HR: 0800h
AN: H51D-0750 [Abstracts]
TI: A Geochemical Reaction Model for Titration of Contaminated Soil and Groundwater at the Oak
Ridge Reservation
AU: * Zhang, F
EM: zhangf@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AU: Parker, J C
EM: jparker@utk.edu
AF: Department.of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Tennessee, 62 Perkins Hall, Knoxville, TN 37996, United States
AU: Gu, B
EM: gub1@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AU: Luo, W
EM: luow@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AU: Brooks, S C
EM: brookssc@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AU: Spalding, B P
EM: spaldingbp@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AU: Jardine, P M
EM: jardinepm@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AU: Watson, D B
EM: watsondb@ornl.gov
AF: Environmental Sciences Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory, P.O. Box 2008, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, United States
AB:
This study investigates geochemical reactions during titration of contaminated soil and groundwater at the Oak
Ridge Reservation in eastern Tennessee. The soils and groundwater exhibits low pH and high concentrations of
aluminum, calcium, magnesium, manganese, various trace metals such as nickel and cobalt, and radionuclides
such as uranium and technetium. The mobility of many of the contaminant species diminishes with increasing
pH. However, base additions to increase pH are strongly buffered by various precipitation/dissolution and
adsorption/desorption reactions. The ability to predict acid-base behavior and associated geochemical effects is
thus critical to evaluate remediation performance of pH manipulation strategies. This study was undertaken to
develop a practical but generally applicable geochemical model to predict aqueous and solid-phase speciation
during soil and groundwater titration. To model titration in the presence of aquifer solids, an approach proposed
by Spalding and Spalding (2001) was utilized, which treats aquifer solids as a polyprotic acid. Previous studies
have shown that Fe and Al-oxyhydroxides strongly sorb dissolved Ni, U and Tc species. In this study, since the
total Fe concentration is much smaller than that of Al, only ion exchange reactions associated with Al hydroxides
are considered. An equilibrium reaction model that includes aqueous complexation, precipitation, ion exchange,
and soil buffering reactions was developed and implemented in the code HydroGeoChem 5.0 (HGC5).
Comparison of model results with experimental titration curves for contaminated groundwater alone and for soil-
water systems indicated close agreement. This study is expected to facilitate field-scale modeling of
geochemical processes under conditions with highly variable pH to develop practical methods to control
contaminant mobility at geochemically complex sites.
DE: 1800 HYDROLOGY
DE: 1831 Groundwater quality
DE: 1846 Model calibration (3333)
DE: 1847 Modeling
DE: 1866 Soil moisture
SC: Hydrology [H]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting