Abstract
Surfactants are the main active agents in detergents products. Our investigation dealt with the effects of surfactants as a wastewater constituent on the infiltration process of wastewater through saturated soil. In order to more closely observe the flow’s interaction, in a laboratory experiment, a 2D Plexiglas model was filled with fine-grained soil and saturated with degassed water. The particle-free artificial laboratory wastewater was created by adding a commercially available detergent to degassed tap water producing a surfactant concentration with the strength equivalent of up to about 15 times of its critical micelle concentration. The visualization of flow was improved by adding a brilliant blue dye tracer enhancing the color contrast. Photographs were taken from the 2D model using conventional imaging equipment and were processed by image analysis to distinguish the dynamic flow interface between dyed and non-dyed areas. Primarily, the images of vertical flows were analyzed after reducing the contrast range. Next, utilizing an image analysis method, 2D images were reconstructed into 3D visualization models. Three-dimensional and cross-sectional images of the fluid–fluid–soil boundary layer revealed a rapid solute transport prevailing at the dynamic interfaces. This was confirmed with image analysis showing geometric irregularities on the soil surface.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramoff M, Magalhaes P, Ram S (2004) Image processing with ImageJ. Biophoto Int 11(7):36–42
Abu-Zreig M, Rudra R, Dickinson W (2003) Effect of application of surfactants on hydraulic properties of soils. Biosyst Eng 84(3):363–372
Adak A, Bandyopadhyay M, Pal A (2005) Removal of anionic surfactant from wastewater by alumina: a case study. Colloids Surf A 254(1):165–171
Alaoui A, Goetz B (2008) Dye tracer and infiltration experiments to investigate macropore flow. Geoderma 144(1):279–286
Alaoui A, Lipiec J, Gerke H (2011) A review of the changes in the soil pore system due to soil deformation: a hydrodynamic perspective. Soil Tillage Res 115:1–15
Barthel, K. (2006). 3D-data representation with ImageJ. In: ImageJ user and developer conference. Luxemburg, pp. 18–19, ISBN 3-540-30940-3
Basu M (2002) Gaussian-based edge-detection methods-a survey. IEEE Trans Syst Man Cybern C 32(3):252–260
Blois G, Barros JM, Christensen KT (2013) PIV investigation of two-phase flow in a micro-pillar microfluidic device, paper presented at 10th International symposium on particle image velocimetry, Delft
Ellis JB, Revitt DM, Vollertsen J, Blackwood DJ (2009) Sewer exfiltration and the colmation layer. Water Sci Technol 59(11):2273–2280
Flury M, Flühler H (1995) Tracer characteristics of brilliant blue FCF. Soil Sci Soc Am J 59(1):22–27
German-Heins J, Flury M (2000) Sorption of Brilliant Blue FCF in soils as affected by pH and ionic strength. Geoderma 97(1):87–101
Henau HD, Mathijs E, Hopping W (1986) Linear alkylbenzene sulfonates (LAS) in sewage sludges, soils and sediments: analytical determination and environmental safety considerations. Int J Environ Anal Chem 26(3–4):279–293
Jähne B (2004) Practical handbook on image processing for scientific and technical applications, 2nd edn. CRC Press, Boca Raton
Karpf C, Hoeft S, Scheffer C, Fuchs L, Krebs P (2011) Groundwater infiltration, surface water inflow and sewerage exfiltration considering hydrodynamic conditions in sewer systems. Water Sci Technol 63(9):1841
Ke L, Takahashi A (2012) Strength reduction of cohesionless soil due to internal erosion induced by one-dimensional upward seepage flow. Soils Found 52(4):698–711
Kennedy C, Cuddihy J, Engel-Yan J (2007) The Changing Metabolism of Cities. J Ind Ecol 11(2):43–59
Levich V (1962) Physicochemical hydrodynamics, 1st edn. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs
Li Z, Jaberi F (2009) Turbulence-interface interactions in a two-fluid homogeneous flow. Phys Fluids 21(9):095102 (1994-present)
Lipsius K, Mooney S (2006) Using image analysis of tracer staining to examine the infiltration patterns in a water repellent contaminated sandy soil. Geoderma 136(3):865–875
Maini R, Aggarwal H (2009) Study and comparison of various image edge detection techniques. Int J Image Process 3(1):1–11
Mooney S, Morris C (2004) Quantification of preferential flow in undisturbed soil columns using dye tracers and image analysis. SuperSoil 2004:3
Münch, C. (2003). Die Bedeutung der Wuzelassoziierten Mikroorganismen für die Stickstoffumsetzung in Pflanzenkläranlagen. Ph.D. Dissertation, Technical University Dresden
Nikpay M, Lazik D, Krebs P (2014) Water displacement by surfactant solution: an experimental study to represent wastewater loss from sewers to saturated soil. Int J Environ Sci Technol. doi:10.1007/s13762-014-0681-1
Nikpay M, Lazik D, Krebs P (2015) Permeability changes by surfactant solution: an experimental study to represent wastewater loss from sewers to saturated soil. Environ Earth Sci. doi:10.1007/s12665-014-4003-1
Rauch W, Stegner T (1994) The colmation of leaks in sewer systems during dry weather flow. Water Sci Technol 30(1):205–210
Rezapour S, Samadi A, Khodaverdiloo H (2012) Impact of long-term wastewater irrigation on variability of soil attributes along a landscape in semi-arid region of Iran. Environ Earth Sci 67(6):1713–1723
Saripalli K, Kim H, Rao P, Annable M (1997) Measurement of specific Fluid–Fluid interfacial areas of immiscible fluids in porous media. Environ Sci Technol 31(3):932–936
Shafran A, Gross A, Ronen Z, Weisbrod N, Adar E (2005) Effects of surfactants originating from reuse of greywater on capillary rise in the soil. Water Sci Technol 52(10):157–166
Sheng F, Liu H, Zhang R, Wang K (2011) Determining the active region model parameter from dye staining experiments for characterizing the preferential flow heterogeneity in unsaturated soils. Environ Earth Sci 65(7):1977–1985
Shrivakshan G, Chandrasekar C (2012) A comparison of various edge detection techniques used in image processing. Int J Comput Sci Issues 9(5):269–276
Sun F, Shao H, Wang W, Watanabe N, Bilke L, Yang Z, Huang Z, Kolditz O (2012) Groundwater deterioration in Nankou—a suburban area of Beijing: data assessment and remediation scenarios. Environ Earth Sci 67(6):1573–1586
The LAB Sulfonic Acids Coalition, (2004) Assessment plan for the linear alkylbenzene (LAB) Sulfonic acids category in accordance with the USEPA high production cl volume chemical challenge program. 201-15171A. Compliance Services International, p 12
Tehrani-Bagha A, Holmberg K (2013) Solubilization of hydrophobic dyes in surfactant solutions. Materials 6(2):580–608
Tory M, Moller T (2004) Human factors in visualization research. IEEE Trans Visual Comput Gr 10(1):72–84
Tremosa J, Gonçalvès J, Matray J (2012) Natural conditions for more limited osmotic abnormal fluid pressures in sedimentary basins. Water Resour Res 48:W04530. doi:10.1029/2011WR010914
Vasudevan M, Buse E, Lu D, Krishna H, Kalyanaraman R, Shen A, Khomami B, Sureshkumar R (2010) Irreversible nanogel formation in surfactant solutions by microporous flow. Nat Mater 9(5):436–441
Zoller U (1993) Groundwater contamination by detergents and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons—a global problem of organic contaminants: is the solution locally specific? Water Sci Technol 27:187–195
Acknowledgments
The work was kindly supported by Helmholtz Interdisciplinary Graduate School for Environmental Research (HIGRADE). We thank Davood Toorchi Roodsari for his technical advice and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Nikpay, M., Lazik, D. & Krebs, P. Visualization of surfactant solution transport in saturated soil: an experimental study to represent wastewater loss from sewers. Environ Earth Sci 74, 6693–6701 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-4679-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-4679-x