|
INTERN: Niloufar Pourian (Left) |
||
|
TRANSPORT OF NANOPARTICLES IN POROUS MEDIA Nowadays, nanoparticles are ubiquitous in the environment and, due to their high surface area to volume ratio, they usually have very high surface activities. It has been found that nanoparticles can serve as potential carriers for environmental contaminants, such as pesticides, heavy metals, radionuclides. The objective of this project is to investigate the effect of nanoparticle properties and the environmental parameters on nanoparticle transport within porous media. Experiments were conducted to study the transport of one engineered nanoparticle (zeolite), and four natural nanoparticles (soil colloids) within clean sand packed glass columns under water-saturated conditions. Nanoparticle suspensions were injected as a pulse and their breakthrough curves took on symmetrical bell shape. The transport of the nanoparticles was calculated as the percentage of the nanoparticles coming out of the columns to the total nanoparticles added to the columns. The results showed that the nanoparticle transport decreases with the ionic strength of the solution, with the correlation being negatively log-linear. The charge density of the nanoparticles denoted by their zeta-potential was found to be the dominant nanoparticle property controlling particle transport. It was also found that the nanoparticle transport decreases with decreasing water flow rate. The results of the study are valuable in predicting nanoparticle transport behaviors within environmental media. . |
||
