Effective gas flow arrangements in soil venting

Soil venting is a remediation technology specifically designed to extract contaminant vapors from vadose-zone soils through application of vacuum at one or more recovery wells installed below the surface. In the present work, screening models are developed which can contribute to the design and optimization of soil venting processes by providing means for comparative evaluation of different extraction strategies. The development of a steady-state gas flow model and a vapor-phase mass transport model permits vacuum extraction performance and venting gas flow patterns to be evaluated for desired combinations of well placement, operating pressure(s), surface capping, air injection, and soil characteristics. Additionally, the performance of the gas-flow model was assessed by comparison with laboratory and field data.