GROUNDWATER POLLUTION BY TRANSFER OF OIL HYDROCARBONS

An important aspect of the pollution of a phreatic aquifer by hydrocarbons is the oil‐water contact and transfer of soluble substances from the oil into the ground water. A systematic study of this transfer of matter in a saturated porous medium (initial condition of contact when the impregnation body is submitted to fluctuations of the piezometric level) is performed with an experimental device made up of a porous matrix containing the oil phase, steady and crossed by a unidirectional flow of water. The transfer is very efficient; for all compounds which have been studied, the maximum possible concentration is reached after a distance of the order of 10 cm with specific flow rates greater than those generally encountered in a gravel‐sand aquifer. The selective impoverishment of the oil product with time, due to differences in the solubility of various hydrocarbons, modifies the dissolved phase composition. Downstream of an in‐situ impregnation body, this phenomenon only appears after a constant concentration has been reached for a long time. A source model is thus obtained, where the pollutant massic flow rate is proportional to the flow rate of the water which crosses the impregnation body. Such an initial condition has a fundamental effect on the determination of the contaminated aquifer domain, with the help of the dispersion scheme, with hydrocarbon concentrations evolving according to a general diffusion‐convection law. Copyright © 1979, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reserved