Cost-effective Monitoring for a Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) System. A Simplified Modeling and Gas Sensor Test

In order to establish cost-effective monitoringstrategies for soil vapor extraction (SVE), a simplifiedmodel for multi-component mass transfer of a complexliquid mixture in porous media and gas sensor are proposedand experimentally evaluated. The basic task for thecost-effective monitoring of SVE is to decide how topredict the performances of venting systems in terms ofthe contaminant vapor removal rate and the time requiredto accomplish the clean-up specification. The methodincludes classifying of individual components of a complexmixture on the basis of gas chromatographic (GC) profileand treating each resulting group as a pseudo-singlecompound. BTEX components of gasoline were selected formodel input and the remainders were divided into 4 groupsbased on their GC retention times. The model proposed inthis study is capable of predicting with accuracyvolatilization behaviors of gasoline components in soiland the gas sensor (FIGARO TGS 823) was tested by GC-FIDto toluene and TPH-GRO(Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon –Gasoline Range Organics) gas samples. A VOC gas sensor wasdeveloped which recognizes TPH-GRO concentrations between250 and 50 ppm. The developed gas sensor test andproposed model can be used as a valuable tool for thecost-effective monitoring for SVE systems.