Groundwater protection from cadmium contamination by zeolite permeable reactive barrier

This work studies the performance of zeolite permeable reactive barrier in removing cadmium from a contaminated shallow aquifer. Batch tests have been performed to characterize the equilibrium sorption properties of the zeolite in cadmium-containing aqueous solutions. A 1D numerical finite difference model has been developed to describe pollutant transport within groundwater taking pollutant sorption on the permeable reactive barrier (PRB), which is performed by Langmuir equation, into account. Numerical results show that the PRB starts to saturate after a period of time (~120h) due to reduction of the retardation factor, indicating a decrease in the percentage of zeolite functionality. However, a reasonable agreement between model predictions and experimental results of Cd+2 concentration across the soil bed in the presence of zeolite permeable reactive barrier was recognized.