Transport and targeted binding of Pluronic-coated nanoparticles in unsaturated porous media

The effectiveness of most in situ remedial technologies, including nanoremediation, lies on successful delivery of reagents to a subsurface target treatment zone. Targeted delivery of engineered nanoparticles (NPs) to treat petroleum hydrocarbons present in the unsaturated zone requires an understanding of their transport behaviour in these systems. A series of column experiments explored the effect of initial water saturation, flowrate, input dosage, and porous medium texture on the transport of iron oxide or cobalt ferrite NPs coated with an amphiphilic co-polymer, as well as their targeted attachment to a crude oil zone. As the initial water content increased with a concomitant reduction in air saturation, the degree of tailing present in the NP breakthrough curves (BTCs) reduced, and the mass of NPs recovered increased. Air saturation is positively correlated with the magnitude of air-water interfaces, which provide additional NP retention sites. At a lower injection flow rate, NP retention increased due to a longer residence time and comparatively high air saturation. NP transport behaviour was not sensitive to NP injection dose over the range tested. Increased retention and retardation of the NP BTC was observed in sediments with a higher clay and silt content. NPs coated with a lower concentration of a Pluronic block co-polymer to promote binding were preferentially retained within the crude oil zone. To simulate the asymmetrical NP breakthrough curves observed from the unsaturated systems required the use of a model that accounted for both mobile and immobile flow regions as well as NP attachment and detachment with nonlinear Langmuirian blocking. This model allowed examination of attachment and detachment rate coefficients which captured NP interaction with the porous medium and/or crude oil. It was found that the initial water saturation and flow rate did not have an appreciable impact on the NP attachment rate coefficient, while it increased by ~10× with increasing clay and silt content, and by ~100× in the presence of crude oil, indicating preferential NP attachment within the crude oil zone. As a result of the lower NP polymer concentration coating used to promote increased attachment to crude oil, higher retention was observed near the column inlet and was captured quantitatively by adding a depth-dependent straining term to the model. This retention behaviour represents a combination of irreversible attachment at the air-water interfaces and straining near the column inlet enhanced by the formation of NP aggregates. The detachment rate coefficient decreased with a lower initial water saturation and flowrate, but increased with higher clay and silt content. The findings from this study contribute to our understanding of the transport and binding behaviour of Pluronic-coated NPs in unsaturated conditions and, in particular, the role of initial water content, flowrate and porous medium texture. Demonstrated delivery of NPs to a target zone is an important step towards expanding the utility of NPs as treatment reagents.