Stochastical Analysis of Surfactant‐Enhanced Remediation of Denser‐than‐Water Nonaqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL)–Contaminated Soils

ABSTRACT Stochastical analysis was performed to assess the effect of soil spatial variability and heterogeneity on the recovery of denser‐than‐water nonaqueous phase liquids (DNAPL) during the process of surfactant‐enhanced remediation. UTCHEM, a three‐dimensional, multicomponent, multiphase, compositional model, was used to simulate water flow and chemical transport processes in heterogeneous soils. Soil spatial variability and heterogeneity were accounted for by considering the soil permeability as a spatial random variable and a geostatistical method was used to generate random distributions of the permeability. The randomly generated permeability fields were incorporated into UTCHEM to simulate DNAPL transport in heterogeneous media and stochastical analysis was conducted based on the simulated results. From the analysis, an exponential relationship between average DNAPL recovery and soil heterogeneity (defined as the standard deviation of log of permeability) was established with a coefficient of determination (r2) of 0.991, which indicated that DNAPL recovery decreased exponentially with increasing soil heterogeneity. Temporal and spatial distributions of relative saturations in the water phase, DNAPL, and microemulsion in heterogeneous soils were compared with those in homogeneous soils and related to soil heterogeneity. Cleanup time and uncertainty to determine DNAPL distributions in heterogeneous soils were also quantified. The study would provide useful information to design strategies for the characterization and remediation of nonaqueous phase liquid–contaminated soils with spatial variability and heterogeneity.