Microscale Simulation of Nanoparticles Transport in Porous Media for Groundwater Remediation

F. Messina[1], M. Icardi[1], D. Machisio[2], R. Sethi[1]
[1]Politecnico di Torino - DIATI, Torino, Italy
[2]Politecnico di Torino - DISAT, Torino, Italy
Veröffentlicht in 2012

Nanoscale zerovalent iron is a promising reagent for the remediation of contaminated groundwater. The aim of the study is to simulate the transport of iron nanoparticles and their interaction with the porous media, their attachment and deposition on the soil grains. The particles trajectories is determined by several forces, some of them are significance only close to grains surfaces where, therefore, a major precision is needed. A Lagrangian approach was implemented in order to derive an estimation of the collector efficiency. For accurate simulations a very small time step is required in the solver. Unfortunately this leads to high computational costs and limits the release of a lot number of particles. For this reason the study is currently been improved.