Modeling remediation of PCE pollution in shallow groundwater by air sparging

Shallow groundwater contaminated by tetrachloroethylene (PCE) has become one of the urgent problem needs to solve. Air sparging is an innovative treatment technology that uses injected air to remove volatile or biodegradable contaminants from vadose zone. It is widely used in the remediation of groundwater contaminated by petroleum hydrocarbon or chloride solvents. TMVOC is used to simulate the transfer and redistribution of PCE spills and remediation of groundwater contaminated by PCE by AS in vadose zone under "natural" environmental conditions. The simulation shows that, shallow groundwater contaminated by PCE is persistent and pollution plume spread slowly. The influence radius of AS increases with the increase of velocity of air injection, and there is a best value for velocity of air injection. These results are helpful for risk assessment studies and remediation studies in sites which are contaminated by PCE. In addition, numerical simulation expands the study scope and in favor of the standardization and popularization of AS technology.