Effects of magnetic field on removal of light non aqueous phase liquid from unsaturated zone using steam injection
Abstract
Abstract
Unsaturated zone is of great importance in providing water and nutrients that are vital to the biosphere and often the main factor controlling water movement from the land surface to the aquifer. Steam injection for remediation of porous media contaminated by NAPLs has been shown to be a potentially efficient technology. However, the need for its improvement in recovery efficiency using other methods has been a subject of continuous study. The aim of this study was to carry out the experiments to investigate the effect of magnetic field on the removal of NAPLs from unsaturated zone using Steam Injection An unsaturated zone of a sand box of interior dimensions 110 x 74 x 8.5 cm was polluted at different period with 200 mL of Toluene. Steam injection experiment with flow rate of 0.01 m3/s was performed to determine the recovery efficiencies of Toluene only in an unsaturated zone containing sand of porosity 0.42 and permeability of 0.001163779 cm/s with the introduction of varying magnetic field 1-3T in step of 1T. The results for the recovery efficiency of Toluene using steam injection only was 80.30% while that of steam injection and magnetic field at 1-3 T yielded 83.70-86.60 %. The results of recovery efficiency of steam injection with magnetic field were 4.23-7.85 % higher than the result of steam injection only for LNAPL (Toluene). A combined application of steam injection with magnetic field appreciably enhances the removal of Non Aqueous phase liquids from Unsaturated Zone.
