Quantification of irreversible benzene sorption in sandy materials

Based on a previous study of the irreversible sorption of benzene in sandy aquifer materials, we further investigated a method to quantify an irreversible sorption coefficient of aqueous benzene. Assuming that the rate of irreversible loss from the solution to the sorption sites followed first-order kinetics, the irreversible sorption coefficient was derived from a kinetic batch sorption test conducted for an appropriate soil-to-solution ratio to reflect the flow conditions imposed on a column test. Simulation results revealed that the irreversible sorption coefficient estimated from the kinetic batch test provided a good agreement with the measured data obtained from the column test, indicating that the method proposed in this study can be used to quantify the irreversible sorption coefficient.