Vaporisation of a volatile organic substance in a porous medium

Knowledge of the mass transfer between liquid and gaseous phases is importa nt for modelling the accidental pollution of a soil with a pure volatile or ganic substance in liquid phase. A macroscopic mathematical model is presen ted to describe the vaporisation of the liquid phase in a porous medium wit h a non-equilibrium kinetics. An asymptotic expansion of the solution to th e mathematical model is used to identify certain parameters of the model wh en gas phase experimental data are available. In addition, the initial conc entration of the pollutant in liquid phase is approximated. (C) Academie de s sciences/Elsevier Paris.