CHEMICAL COMPATIBILITY OF SOIL-BENTONITE CUT-OFF WALL FOR IN-SITU GEOENVIRONMENTAL CONTAINMENT

A construction technique to install the soil-bentonite (SB) cut-off wall for in-situ geoenvironmental containment by employing the trench cutting and re-mixing deep wall method is first presented in this paper. The laboratory test results on the hydraulic barrier performance of SB in relation to the chemical compatibility are then discussed. Hydraulic conductivity tests using flexible-wall permeameters as well as swell tests were conducted for SB specimens exposed to various types and concentrations of chemicals (calcium chloride, heavy fuel oil, ethanol, and/or seawater) in the permeant and/or in the pore water of original soil. For the SB specimens in which the pore water of original soil did not contain such chemicals and thus the sufficient bentonite hydration occurred, k values were not significantly increased even when permeated with the relatively aggressive chemical solutions such as 1.0 mol/L $CaCl_2$ or 50%-concentration ethanol solution. In contrast, the SB specimens containing $CaCl_2$ in the pore water had the higher k values. The excellent linear correlation between log k and swelling pressure implies that the swelling pressure can be a good indicator for the hydraulic barrier performance of the SB.