Reactive Membrane Barriers for Containment of Subsurface Contamination
Bill Arnold
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering
University of Minnesota

Because treatment/remediation at some sites is neither technically or economically feasible, containment or stabilization may be the only viable alternative. For containment to be effective, the barrier must prevent the transport/diffusion of the contaminant for as long as possible. Calculations predict reactive membrane barriers will prevent the migration/breakthrough of contaminants for 100-1000 times longer than polymer membranes alone. These modified membranes have the potential to contain subsurface sources of organic and inorganic contaminants in both vadose and saturated zones. Our results to date demonstrate that incorporation of reactive particles into polyvinyl alcohol membranes can dramatically increase the time to contaminant breakthrough. Zinc oxide particles effectively retard the breakthrough of acid. Zero-valent iron nanoparticles dramatically increase the lag times of the model environmental carbon tetrachloride and Cu(II). Reactive membranes, therefore, represent a significant advance over current membrane-based containment techniques.

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