Engineering behavior and sedimentation behavior of lead contaminated soil-bentonite vertical cutoff wall backfills

Abstract

Soil-bentonite (SB) vertical slurry cutoff wall is a useful treatment for urban industrial contaminated sites. Due to the clay−heavy metal interaction, significant changes would occur in the engineering behavior of SB cutoff walls. However, previous study is limited to kaolinitic soils or montmorillonitic soils along using solidum chloride and/or calcium chloride as target contaminant. In this work, a series of oedometer tests were conducted to investigate the effects of lead (Pb) on the compressibility and the permeability of kaolin-bentonite (KB) mixtures, a simplified model of in-situ SB cutoff wall backfills. In addition, sedimentation tests were conducted to interpret the mechanism controlling the change of compressibility and permeability from the perspective of soil fabric. The Pb-contaminated KB mixtures for oedometer tests and sedimentation tests were prepared with bentonite contents of 0, 5%, 10%, and 15% by dry mass, and they were mixed with pre-determined volume of lead nitrate solution based on designed Pb concentration and solid-to-solution ratio. The Pb concentration was controlled as 0, 0.1, 0.5, 1.0, 5.0, 10, and 50 mg/g with a solid-to-solution ratio of approximate 0.5. The prepared KB mixtures with bentonite contents of 0, 5%, and 10% were chosen for the sedimentation tests. They were freeze-dried and mixed with DDI with a solid-to-solution ratio of 10 g/100 mL. The results indicate that pH, compressibility, and permeability of KB mixture changed considerably with respect to Pb concentration. It is concluded that the fabric of KB mixture, depending on the particle−particle interaction subjected to different ranges of pH and Pb concentration, governs the sedimentation behavior and permeability. The results of liquid limit (wL) cannot be explained in terms of the sedimentation behavior since it is only ionic-dependent.