A new foam-based method for the (bio)degradation of hydrocarbons in contaminated vadose zone

Controlled treatment of a high velocity anisotropic aquifer model contaminated by hexachlorocyclohexanes

“…In particular, it is acknowledged that strong permeability contrasts hinder the homogeneous delivery of remediation fluids that mainly sweep through the 4 most permeable pathways [14][15][16]. Soil anisotropy leads to uncontrolled radii of influence (ROI), preferential flows and the heterogeneous distribution of amendments [17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Thus, low permeability zones where contaminants are often trapped are badly swept and remain untreated.…”

“…This wellknown trouble led to the use of viscous, but shear-thinning fluids in oil recovery [14,[27][28][29][30]. These behaviors, observed for associative polymers like xanthan and for foams, are used for the ISR of contaminated soils [20,21,23,[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”