Modeling Mass Transfer Processes in Soil Columns with Pore‐Scale Heterogeneity

Abstract

AbstractRemoval of dissolved organic compounds from natural porous media is rate limited by multiple, simultaneous mass transfer processes, including slow diffusion from immobile zones of varying sizes and shapes, and rate‐limited sorption. We examined the variability in mass transfer rates and quantified the effects of multiple, simultaneous mass transfer processes on unsaturated column experiments using a diffusion model with a statistical distribution of diffusion rate coefficients. We examined the validity of conventional first‐order mass transfer and diffusion models to represent mass transfer in subsurface systems and compared this with a diffusion model with a lognormal distribution of diffusion rate coefficients. The main conclusions of our work are: (i) even in relatively homogeneous porous media, extreme variability (exceeding four orders of magnitude) in diffusion rate coefficients (Da/a2) must be invoked to represent mass transfer in the experiments we examined; (ii) models using a lognormal distribution of diffusion rate coefficients, while employing only one more mass transfer parameter than conventional models, generally represent mass transfer much better; (iii) single‐rate‐coefficient models (either first‐order or diffusion) very poorly represent mass transfer in all experiments examined, although some of this failure is attributed to our use of a linear isotherm; (iv) models with two diffusion rate coefficients, although containing twice as many estimated parameters, also offer poor representations of mass transfer.