Viscosity remedial technology, which uses a water-soluble polymer mixed with remedial fluids, has been introduced in recent years to improve the removal efficacy of perchloroethylene/tetrachloroethylene (PCE) by improving oxidant coverage (i.e. sweep efficiency). Xanthan gum and hydrolysed polyacrylamide (HPAM) are relatively stable with time and temperature and possess salt and oxidation resistance, indicating that they may be good flooding agents (the former is better than the latter in this work). In this work, we quantified the polymer directly improved oxidation of PCE during transport by using a two-dimensional flow tank. Using a low pore volume (≤3.0), the removal rate of the PCE increased with the polymer concentration before stabilizing at approximately 93.00 and 88.30% for xanthan and HPAM, respectively. In this work, over 80% of PCE was removed via less than 3.0 PV of the SDS solution, whereas complete removal (100%) was achieved with less than 3.0 PV of SDS foam. Furthermore, the new experimental discoveries demonstrate that xanthan is better than HPAM and SDS foam is a better remediation agent than the SDS solution for removing PCE.
Graphical abstract (Reaction device, A - inlet device (pump 1#), B - 2D tank, C - outflow device (pump 2#), D - data recording and processing device, E - microscopic expression, E (a) - KMnO4 flushing, E (b) - polymer solution flushing).
