Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2010WY57B

Development of a Contaminant Leaching Model for Aquifer Storage and Recovery Technology

Institute: Wyoming
Year Established: 2010 Start Date: 2010-03-01 End Date: 2013-03-01
Total Federal Funds: $21,212 Total Non-Federal Funds: $140,653

Principal Investigators: Maohong Fan

Project Summary: Wyoming is lacking in water resources. Aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) through water injection could be an important method to solve the water problem in Wyoming. However water injection could lead to contamination of ASR due to the leaching of heavy metals and other elements. Therefore prediction of the potential of leaching of contaminants with a model is critically important to the successes of the application of ASR technology in Wyoming and other states in the U.S.. The proposed project is designed to provide a solution to the universal issue facing many potential ASR technology customers, which is based on the physical and chemical properties of rocks and waters to be used and chemical engineerings kinetic theories. Both batch leaching and continuous flow leaching models are going to be developed. The purpose of developing batching model is to obtain necessary kinetic parameters for development of continuous flow leaching model. The continuous flow models (for multi species) will not only be developed but also be tested under various contaminant leaching conditions.