ARPHA Conference Abstracts :
Conference Abstract
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Corresponding author: Jingzhi Liang (amanda.liang@mail.utoronto.ca)
Received: 05 Jun 2023 | Published: 13 Oct 2023
© 2023 Jingzhi Liang, Hardiljeet Boparai, Line Lomheim, Ariel Nunez Garcia, Elizabeth Edwards, Denis O'Carroll, Brent Sleep
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Liang J, Boparai H, Lomheim L, Nunez Garcia A, Edwards E, O`Carroll D, Sleep B (2023) Subsurface Transport of Sulfidated Nano Zero Valent Iron and In Situ Biogeochemical Transformation of Chlorinated Solvents: A Field Study. ARPHA Conference Abstracts 6: e107556. https://doi.org/10.3897/aca.6.e107556
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In situ chemical reduction of chlorinated volatile organic compounds (cVOCs) by nano zero-valent iron (nZVI) has been widely applied in the past 20 years, but with limited effectiveness for bare nZVI due to rapid particle settling, short lifespan, and low reactivity. Stabilization and sulfidation of nZVI have improved its mobility and longevity, increased reactivity towards cVOCs, and reduced toxicity to microbes (
In the first-ever CMC-S-nZVI field trial, nZVI sulfidated by dithionite (S-nZVI) and stabilized by carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) was injected into the subsurface of a site contaminated with a wide range of cVOCs. Multi-level wells were installed to monitor the transport of the CMC-S-nZVI suspension and its remedial performance for two years. Short-term (0-17 days) monitoring demonstrated a good transport of the suspension in the down- and up-gradient wells, in terms of total iron, boron, and sulfides which were major constituents of CMC-S-nZVI. Changes in concentrations of parent compounds, intermediates, and ethene showed effective dechlorination of high-chlorinated VOCs such as tetrachloroethene (PCE) and carbon tetrachloride (
Long-term (157-729 days) performance was evaluated through temporal analyses of microbial communities, total iron, boron, and cVOCs in groundwater samples. Microbial populations, including organohalide-respiring bacteria, increased by >1 order of magnitude; with Geobacter being the most abundant. This long-term enrichment can be attributed to the low toxicity of CMC-S-nZVI and biostimulation by CMC and perhaps Fe3+. Non-metric multidimensional scaling analysis was carried out on microbial data grouped by depth range and proximity to the injection well. At locations that clearly received CMC-S-nZVI, there was a significant shift in microbial communities that was sustained for the long term.
Iron concentrations increased substantially in long-term samples while boron concentrations decreased, suggesting that this iron did not come from CMC-S-nZVI. Microbial dissolution of iron minerals might have contributed to the increased iron content (
Long-term changes in concentrations of lesser-chlorinated VOCs and hydrocarbons suggest that PCE was degraded via both the microbially-mediated sequential hydrogenolysis as well as the abiotic β-elimination. The intermediate vinyl chloride (VC) surprisingly did not accumulate in the current study, in contrast to the significant VC accumulation in a previous un-sulfidated CMC-nZVI trial at the same location (
In summary, this study has demonstrated the long-term efficiency of CMC-S-nZVI for cVOCs removal through a combination of abiotic, biotic, and biostimulatory processes in the subsurface.
dithionite sulfidation, reductive dechlorination, microbial analysis, nZVI, ISBGT
Jingzhi Liang
ISEB-ISSM 2023; Theme 2; Oral