The objectives of the study described herein are (1) to identify the relationship between desorption rate and biotransformation rate of soil-bound hydrophobic organic chemicals ("HOC," phenanthrene or hexadecane) in response to biosurfactant sorption at the soil-water interface, and (2) to identify potential processes that are responsible for limiting the bioavailability of soil-sorbed HOC, and address how surfactant sorption may affect those processes. These objectives will be addressed in a discussion of laboratory data from meso-scale abiotic and biotic soil column studies that show the relationships between sorbed surfactant concentration, HOC desorption rates, and HOC biotransformation rates. In particular, it will be shown that the influence of surfactant sorption on the bioavailability of sorbed chemicals will depend in large part on the species-dependent interaction of surfactants with bacteria.

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Confinement and Remediation of Environmental Hazards

1999-2000 Reactive Flow and Transport Phenomena