In situ remediation of petroleum contaminated groundwater by permeable reactive barrier with hydrothermal palygorskite as medium

Abstract

The permeable reactive barrier(PRB) has proven to be a cost-effective technique to remediate the petroleum contaminated groundwater at a northeast field site in China. In this study, the geology, hydrogeology and contamination characterization of the field site were investigated and the natural hydrothermal palygorskite was chosen as a reactive medium. Furthermore, the adsorption of the total petroleum hydrocarbons(TPH) in the groundwater onto hydrothermal palygorskite and the adsorption kinetics were investigated. The results indicate that the removal rates of TPH, benzene, naphthalene and phenantharene could all reach up to 90% by hydrothermal palygorskite with a diameter of 0.25–2.00 mm that had been thermally pretreated at 140 °C. The adsorption of TPH onto hydrothermal palygorskite after pretreatment followed a pseudo-second-order kinetic model and a Langmuir adsorption isotherm, suggesting that the theoretic adsorption capacity of hydrothermal palygorskite for adsorbate could be 4.2 g/g. Scanning electron microscopy(SEM), infrared spectroscopy(IR), X-ray diffraction(XRD) and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy( XRF) were carried out to analyze the adsorption mechanism. The results reveal that hydrothermal palygorskite is a fibrous silicate mineral enriched in Mg and Al with large surface area and porosity. The dense cluster acicular and fibrous crystal of hydrothermal palygorskite, and its effect polar group —OH played an important role in the physical and chemical adsorption processes of it for contaminants. This study has demonstrated hydrothermal palygorskite is a reliable reactive medium for in situ remediation of petroleum contaminated groundwater at field sites.