Remediation of benzene and 1,2-dichloroethylene in groundwater by funnel and gate permeable reactive barrier (FGPRB): A case study

Abstract

Funnel and gate permeable reactive barrier (FGPRB) is an effective method to treat ground-water pollution. In order to clarify the impact of FGPRB on groundwater dynamic conditions, this study takes a site pilot test as the research object and establishes an FGPRB downstream of a petro-chemical industry. The results show that the concentrations of 1,2-dichloroethylene and benzene in the downstream groundwater, after setting FGPRB, are lower than the detection limit. The numerical simulation results show that after setting FGPRB, both point source and area source pollution can achieve a good delay effect, extending from about 27 d to about 65 d of response time, but changing the thickness and permeability coefficient has no obvious effect on the delay effect. The tracer test shows the average permeability coefficient of the medium from the injection well to the monitoring well after the construction of FGPRB decreases from 77.0 m/d to 31.2 m/d after the construction of FGPRB. The average seepage velocity from the injection well to the monitoring well decreased from 0.19 m/d to 0.078 m/d after the construction of FGPRB. At the same time, when the FGPRB is not built, the maximum concentration time from the injection well to the monitoring well is about 10 d. After the FGPRB is constructed, the maximum concentration time of the tracer received by the monitoring well is about 27 days. These results confirm that the establishment of FGPRB will change the hydrodynamic conditions of groundwater and delay the response time of pollutants in the monitoring well.