• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.57 no.5
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• pp.487-497
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• 2024

Pore-scale reactive transport modeling is a powerful tool used to analyze micro-scale processes where fluid flow and geochemical reactions occur. Despite its capability to examine complex hydrological and geochemical system behavior, the high computational demands for these simulations present a significant limitation. To overcome this challenge, this study evaluated artificial neural network (ANN)-based surrogate models to replace geochemical reaction calculations, which consume the majority of computational time in reactive transport simulations. The study considered two ANN models: a combined model (CM) that simultaneously accounts for mineral dissolution/precipitation and solute adsorption reactions, and an independent model (IM) that treats these reactions independently. The performance of these models was compared using metrics, including mean squared error (MSE), coefficient of determination (R²), and mass balance errors. Results indicate that IM demonstrates superior accuracy compared to CM. This finding suggests that instead of constructing a single complex model for the entire geochemical reaction network, pore-scale geochemical reactions can be effectively replaced by combining individual neural network models trained for specific reactions.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.50 no.6
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• pp.545-554
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• 2017

Birnessite is one of the dominant Mn (oxyhydr)oxide phases commonly found in soil and deep ocean environments. It typically occurs as nano-sized and poorly crystalline aggregates in the natural environment. It is well known that birnessite participates in a wide variety of bio/geochemical reactions as a reactive mineral phase with structural defects, cation vacancies, and mixed valences of structural Mn. These various bio/geochemical reactions control not only the fate and transport of inorganic and organic substances in the environment, but also the formation of diverse Mn (oxyhydr)oxides through birnessite transformation. This review assessed and discussed about the phase transformation of birnessite under a wide range of environmental conditions and about the potential geochemical factors controlling the corresponding reactions in the literature. Birnessite transformation to other types of Mn (oxyhydr)oxides were affected by dissolved Mn(II), dissolved oxygen, solution pH, and co-existing cation (i.e., $Mg^{2+}$). However, there still have been many issues to be unraveled on the complex bio/geochemical processes involved in the phase transformation of birnessite. Future work on the detail mechanisms of birnessite transformation should be further investigated.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.6
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• pp.459-482
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• 2006

A geochemical approach to the long-term safety of waste disposal is discussed in connection with the significance of actinides, which shall deliver the major radioactivity inventory subsequent to the relatively short-term decay of fission products. Every power reactor generates transuranic (TRU) elements: plutonium and minor actinides (Np, Am, Cm), which consist chiefly of long-lived nuclides emitting alpha radiation. The amount of TRU actinides generated in a fuel life period is found to be relatively small (about 1 wt% or less in spent fuel) but their radioactivity persists many hundred thousands years. Geological confinement of waste containing TRU actinides demands, as a result, fundamental knowledge on the geochemical behavior of actinides in the repository environment for a long period of time. Appraisal of the scientific progress in this subject area is the main objective of the present paper. Following the introductory discussion on natural radioactivities, the nuclear fuel cycle is briefly brought up with reference to actinide generation and waste disposal. As the long-term disposal safety concerns inevitably with actinides, the significance of the aquatic actinide chemistry is summarized in two parts: the fundamental properties relevant to their aquatic behavior and the geochemical reactions in nanoscopic scale. The constrained space of writing allows discussion on some examples only, for which topics of the primary concern are selected, e.g. apparent solubility and colloid generation, colloid-facilitated migration, notable speciation of such processes, etc. Discussion is summed up to end with how to make a geochemical approach available for the long-term disposal safety of nuclear waste or for the performance assessment (PA) as known generally.

• Proceedings of the KSEEG Conference
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• 2002.06a
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• pp.81-100
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• 2002

While most of regulatory communities in abroad recognize ' 'natural attenuation " to include degradation, dispersion, dilution, sorption (including precipitation and transformation), and volatilization as governing Processes, regulators prefer "degradation" because this mechanism destroys the contaminant of concern. Unfortunately, true degradation only applies to organic contaminants and short- lived radionuclides, and leaves most metals and long-lived radionuclides. The natural attenuation Processes may reduce the potential risk Posed by site contaminants in three ways: (i)contaminants could be converted to a less toxic form througy destructive processes such as biodegradation or abiotic transformations; (ii) potential exposure levels may be reduced by lowering concentrations (dilution and dispersion); and (iii) contaminant mobility and bioavailability may be reduced by sorption to geomedia. In this review, authors will focus will focul on "sorption" among the natural attenuation processes of hazardous inorganic contaminants including radionuclides. Note though that sorption and transformation processes of inorganic contaminants in the natural setting could be influenced by biotic activities but our discussion would limit only to geochemical reactions involved in the natural attenuation. All of the geochemical reactions have been studied in-depth by numerous researchers for many years to understand "retardation" process of contaminants in the geomedia. The most common approach for estimating retardation is the determination of distrubution coefficiendts ($K_{d}$) of contaminants using parametric or mechanistic models. As typocally used in fate and contaminant transport calculations such as predictive models of the natural attenuation, the $K_{d}$ is defined as the ratio of the contaminant concentration in the surrounding aqueous solution when the system is at equilibrium. Unfortunately, generic or default $K_{d}$ values can result in significant error when used to predict contaminant migration rate and to select a site remediation alternative. Thus, to input the best $K_{d}$ value in the contaminant transport model, it is essential that important geochemical processes affecting the transport should be identified and understood. Precipitation/dissolution and adsorption/desorption are considered the most important geochemical processes affecting the interaction of inorganic and radionuclide contaminants with geomedia at the near and far field, respectively. Most of contaminants to be discussed in this presentation are relatively immobile, i.e., have very high $K_{d}$ values under natural geochemical environments. Unfortunately, the obvious containment in a source area may not be good enough to qualify as monitored natural attenuation site unless owner demonstrate the efficacy if institutional controls that were put in place to protect potential receptors. In this view, natural attenuation as a remedial alternative for some of sites contaminated by hazardous-inorganic components is regulatory and public acceptance issues rather than scientific issue.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Soil and Groundwater Environment Conference
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• 2004.04a
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• pp.19-22
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• 2004

Two-dimensional modeling studies using TOUGHREACT were conducted to investigate the coupling between flow and transport developed as a consequence of differences in density, dissolution/ precipitation, and medium heterogeneity. The model includes equilibrium reactions for aqueous species, kinetic reactions between tile solid phases and aqueous constituents, and full coupling of porosity and permeability changes resulting from precipitation and dissolution reactions in porous media. Generally, the evolutions in the concentrations of the aqueous phase are intimately related to the reaction-front dynamics. Plugging of the medium contributed to significant transients in patterns of flow and mass transport.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.90-102
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• 2015

To understand the hyrogeochemical variation of bedrock aquifer during underground space construction, various graphical methods including multiple-component plots and chemical trends were used to estimate the mixing rate between seawater and freshwater and to investigate the evolution of water quality. The water chemistry and mixing rate between fresh and sea waters, which are generally localized in the construction area (MW-7, in land), shows typical characteristics of freshwater that doesn’t affect its validity as seawater intrusion. Especially, the water chemistry of a MW-4 (coastline) was classified as Na-Cl type, Na-HCO₃ type, and Ca-Cl type due to the influence of the seawater intrusion. And hydrogeochemical and isotopic data show that local freshwater is subjected to geochemical processes, such as reverse ion-exchange. Throughout the Chadha’s diagrams, four different case histories with the temporal and spatial variation of groundwaters in the study area were proposed, which is recommended to interpret the hydrogeochemical reactions effectively.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.101-111
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• 1999

Sedimentary organic matter, exposed to continental surficial environment, reacts with oxygen supplied from the atmosphee and forms carbon-containing oxidation products. Knowledge of the rate and mechanisms of sedimentary organic matter weathering is important because it is one of the major controls on atmospheric oxygen level through geologic time. Under the abiological conditions, the oxidation rate of coal organic matter by molecular oxygen is enhanced by the increase of oxygen concentration and temperature. At ambient temperature and pressure, aqueous coal oxidation results in the formation of dissolved $CO_2$ dissolved organic carbon and solid oxidation products which are all quantitatively significant reaction products. The effects of pH, ultraviolet light, and microbial activity on the weathering of sedimentary organic matter are poorly contrained. Based on the results of geochmical and environmental studies, it is believed that the photochemical reaction should play an important role in the decomposition and oxidation of sedimentary organic matter removed from the weathering profile. At higher pH conditions, the production rate of DOC can be accelerated due to base catalysis. These high molecular weight oranic matter can react with man-made pollutants such as heavy metal ions via adsorption/desorption or ion exchange reactions. The effect of microbial activity on the oxidative weathering of sedimentary organic matter is poorly understood and remains to be studied.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.421-430
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• 2014

In this study, a series of autoclave experiments were conducted in order to investigate the geochemical and mineralogical effects of carbon dioxide on deep subsurface environments. High pressure and temperature conditions of $50^{\circ}C$ and 100 bar, which are representative environments for geological $CO_2$ sequestration, were created in stainless-steel autoclaves for simulating the interactions in the $scCO_2$-groundwater-mineral reaction system. Zeolite, a widespread mineral in Pohang Basin where many researches have been focused as a candidate for geological $CO_2$ sequestration, and groundwater sampled from an 800 m depth aquifer were applied in the experiments. Geochemical and mineralogical alterations after 30 days of $scCO_2$-groundwater-zeolite sample reactions were quantitatively examined by XRD, XRF, and ICP-OES investigations. The results suggested that dissolution of zeolite sample was enhanced under the acidic condition induced by dissolution of $scCO_2$. As the cation concentrations released from zeolite sample increase, $H^+$ in groundwater was consumed and pH increases up to 10.35 after 10 days of reaction. While cation concentrations showed increasing trends in groundwater due to dissolution of the zeolite sample, Si concentrations decreased due to precipitation of amorphous silicate, and Ca concentrations decreased due to cation exchange and re-precipitation of calcite. Through the reaction experiments, it was observed that introduction of $CO_2$ could make alterations in dissolution characteristics of minerals, chemical compositions and properties of groundwater, and mineral compositions of aquifer materials. Results also showed that geochemical reactions such as cation exchange or dissolution/precipitation of minerals could play an important role to affect physical and chemical characteristics of geologic formations and groundwater.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.25-36
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• 2020

In a redox transition zone, geochemical reactions are facilitated by active bacteria that mediate reactions involving electrons, and arsenic (As) and iron (Fe) cycles are the major electron transfer reactions occurring at such a site. In this study, the effect of repetitive redox changes on soil bacterial community in As-contaminated soil was investigated. The results revealed that bacterial community changed actively in response to redox changes, and bacterial diversity gradually decreased as the cycle repeated. Proportion of strict aerobes and anaerobes decreased, while microaerophilic species such as Azospirillum oryzae group became the predominant species, accounting for 72.7% of the total counts after four weeks of incubation. Bacterial species capable of reducing Fe or As (e.g., Clostridium, Desulfitobacterium) belonging to diverse phylogenetic groups were detected. Indices representing richness (i.e., Chao 1) and phylogenetic diversity decreased from 1,868 and 1,926 to 848 and 1,121, respectively. Principle component analysis suggests that repetitive redox fluctuation, rather than oxic or anoxic status itself, is an important factor in determining the change of soil bacterial community, which in turn affects the cycling of As and Fe in redox transition zones.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.477-480
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• 2007

Inlet fluid temperature of the BRE in the geothermal heat pump system depends on heat exchange rate between the refrigerant of the heat pump and the leaving fluid from the BRE. Because the outlet fluid temperature of the BHE varies with time, inlet fluid temperature has to vary with time. In this study, the module to calculate inlet fluid temperature is developed, which can consider the time-varying outlet fluid temperature and the heat exchange capacity of the heat pump. It is assumed that heat loss or gain of the leaving fluid from outlet to inlet of the BHE is negligible, except when the fluid contacts with the refrigerant of the heat pump. This module is combined with TOUGHREACT, a widely accepted three-dimensional numerical simulator for heat and water flow and geochemical reactions in geothermal systems and is applied to data analyses of the thermal response test.