Contaminant transport coupled with nonlinear biodegradation and nonlinear sorption

Abstract

A coupled process one-dimensional model with two-region transport, two-domain nonlinear sorption, and nonlinear biodegradation is formulated in this research. A numerical code is developed for this complex system with two sets of initial/boundary conditions. The second order upwind method is used to solve PDEs of the system, and the Adam-Bashforth three step method is used to solve ODEs of the system. By nondimensionalizing the governing equations for transport and nonlinear biodegradation, we show that biodegradation is controlled by three characteristic combined factors: the effective maximum specific growth rate, the relative half-saturation constant, and the relative substrate-utilization coefficient. A diagram with type curves was constructed based on the three characteristic factors to show the conditions under which complete and incomplete biodegradation is observed, and the conditions for which the linear, first-order approximation is valid for representing biodegradation. Analytical and numerical approaches were used to study the effect of substrate boundary concentration on biodegradation in a coupled-process system. For a system with fixed biotic and abiotic properties, substrate input concentration could be positively or negatively correlated to the magnitude of substrate degradation, depending on the time scale of the process. The relative scale of substrate concentration and its half-saturation constant is very important for the success and efficiency of bioremediation. It is found that bioremediation can be more efficient for higher concentration contaminant under certain conditions. The impact of biodegradation on solute transport with linear or nonlinear, equilibrium sorption was studied by using moments analysis. Computation results show that linear biodegradation has no impact on spatial moments of transport with linear instantaneous sorption. Conversely, it has an impact when sorption is nonlinear, since nonlinear sorption is enhanced by biodegradation. Nonlinear biodegradation causes preferential non-uniform substrate degradation and, therefore, affects spatial moments of transport with linear or nonlinear sorption. The oxygen constraint decreases the degree of nonlinear biodegradation and increases the degree of preferential degradation, thus it also impacts spatial moments of transport with linear or nonlinear sorption.