Effects of system parameters on the physical characteristics of bubbles produced through air sparging

Air sparging is a relatively new, cost-effective technology for the remediation of soil and groundwater contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs). While the method has met with reasonable success at a large number of field sites, implementation of the technique is restricted to relatively coarse-grained soils with large values of air permeability, which significantly limits its applicability. An understanding of the fundamental parameters that control the formation and distribution of air in the sparging process is useful for optimizing the system implementation and extending its range of applicability. This work presents the results of an experimental investigation into the effect of process control parameters on the size and size distribution of air bubbles produced in aqueous and idealized saturated porous media systems. The experiments used digital image analysis to image and quantify the physical characteristics of the bubbles generated in a bench scale test cell. Results demonstrated that the average bubble size and range of size distribution increased as the injection pressure and size of the injection orifice were increased. Larger diameter bubbles with wider size distributions were produced in the presence of particles when compared to aqueous systems. As the particle size was decreased, the size of bubbles produced increased. Finally, the presence of trace quantities of the surfactant Triton X100 led to uniformly small diameter bubbles under all experimental conditions. The presence of the surfactant coating produced bubbles with physical characteristics that are more suited to in situ stripping of VOCs than the bubbles produced in the absence of a surfactant.