Influence of Oil Pollution on the Permeability of Soils
Mei Li, Xilai Zheng, Ling Tong, Zengwen Gao · Acta Scientiarum Naturalium Universitatis Sunyatseni · 2009
The permeability can be changed when the soil is contaminated by oil pollutants,which can influence the transport of water or solute in the soil-water system.Sand and loam soil were taken as soil samples,diesel oil and crude oil as oil samples,then the permeability of oil-contaminated soils with different pollution extents was studied.The permeability coefficient of sand reduces by about 64% when the sand is contaminated by diesel oil and that of sand reduces by 1 order magnitude when crude oil content is higher than 2%.The permeability coefficient of loam soil with 8% of diesel oil content reduces by 97% compared with clean loam soil,while that of loam soil with 8% of oil content is 5×10-7cm/s,which is 2 order magnitude smaller than that of clean loam soil with the same dry density of 1.57 g/cm3.When the crude oil content is higher,the permeability of loam soil becomes worse.Regardless of sand or loam soil,the decrease of permeability coefficient induced by crude oil is greater than by diesel oil,which is due to the higher viscosity of crude oil.