Experimental study on heavy metal ion transport in clay under coupled flows

Clay liner is widely used in landfill for its powerful decontamination ability,low penetrability and low expense.It can not prevent the contamination leakage completely under the coupled movements induced by the hydraulic and chemical gradients.If a direct current electric field was applied to a polluted soil,the contamination would be motivated in a different way by the electroosmosis and electromigration.An apparatus newly developed was introduced to investigate the contamination transportation behaviors under coupled flow fields.A group of test results were presented and discussed in which the zinc ions concentration,water content and pH value of polluted soils were measured.The test results show that electrokinetic action may be an effective technique to limit the diffusion of zinc ions.