THERMAL VARIATION OF ORGANIC FLUID PROPERTIES AND IMPACT ON THERMAL REMEDIATION FEASIBILITY

Preliminary evaluations of the feasibility of thermal remediation tech niques such as hot water flooding and steam flushing can be conducted with a knowledge of the influence of temperature on organic fluid prop erties such as interfacial tension, density, viscosity, solubility, va por pressure, and Henry's constant Relationships quantifying the effec t of these fluid properties on organic removal and empirical equations for predicting the thermal variation of fluid properties are reviewed . Methods for measuring these properties are reviewed and applied to t he characterization of perchloroethylene and a transformer oil. The im portance of various removal mechanisms associated with thermal remedia tion is evaluated for these two fluids. Perchloroethylene solubilities increased by approximately 60% as temperature increased from 30 degre es C to 90 degrees C, suggesting that increased solubilization at high er temperatures would not be a significant removal mechanism. Viscosit y and density reductions for both NAPLs were small, indicating that hy draulic displacement of NAPL would not be greatly enhanced with hot wa ter or steam flushing. Interfacial tension decreases were not great en ough to cause concern about downward remobilization of pools and resid ual zones of NAPLs. Capillary numbers for hot wafer flooding decreased for both NAPL, suggesting that hot water flooding would not enhance h ydraulic removal of entrapped NAPL.