Visualizing plumes of heavy metals and radionuclides

The understanding of the transport behaviors in porous media resides on the ability to reproduce fundamental phenomena in a lab setting. Experiments with quasi 2D tanks filled with beads are performed to study physical phenomena induced by chemical and fluid dynamic processes. When an alkaline solution containing heavy metals or radionuclides invades a low pH region, mixing due to longitudinal dispersion induces destabilization of the front forming a fast travelling pulse [1]. When the two fluids travel in parallel, instead, mixing induced by transverse dispersion creates a continuous leakage from the alkaline region into the acidic one forming a fast travelling plume [2] (Figure 1). Impact of these phenomena are on aquifers upon leaking of alkaline fluids, rich in heavy metals and radionuclides, from waste storage sites. Here, we report the results from a study where experiments with a quasi 2D tank are performed to analyze the effect of transverse mixing on strontium (Sr2+) transport. To visualize the leaking plume, a fluorescent dye (Fura-2) is added the acidic solution, which has been widely used in biomedical applications [3]. It is the aim of this work to optimize its application under the conditions relevant to this work. Spectrometric measurements of absorption and fluorescence show sensitivity of the dye to the presence of Sr2+ throughout a broad range of pH and Sr2+ concentration (Figure 2). In the absence of Sr2+, no significant absorption and fluorescence was measured, but as Sr2+ was added the relevant peaks increase significantly and sample dilution of tenfold was required to remain within the measuring threshold. These results show a strong sensitivity of the dye to the cation opening the opportunity to use Fura-2 as a tool to visualize heavy metals and radionuclides plumes. References[1] Prigiobbe et al. (2012) GRL 39, L18401. [2] Prigiobbe and Hesse (2015) in preparation. [3] Xu-Friedman and Regehr (2000) J. Neurosci. 20(12) 4414-4422.