Second ISSMGE R. Kerry Rowe Lecture: On the intrinsic, state, and fabric parameters of active clays for contaminant control

The osmotic, hydraulic and self-healing efficiency of bentonite-based barriers for the containment of subsoil pollutants is governed not only by the intrinsic chemicophysical parameters of the bentonite, i.e., the solid phase density, ρsk; the total specific surface, S; the surface density of the electric charge, σ; and the Stern layer thickness, dStern, and fraction, fStern, but also by the chemicomechanical fabric parameters that quantify the structure or texture of the solid skeleton, such as the micro, em, and nano, en, void ratios; the average number of platelets or lamellae per tactoid, Nl,AV; and the solid skeleton effective electric charge concentration, c¯sk,0. In turn, the fabric parameters are controlled by state parameters, such as the total void ratio, e; and the salt concentration of the equilibrium solution, cs. A theoretical framework has been developed to describe the relationships between the aforementioned intrinsic, state, and fabric parameters for a bentonite barrier and its performance parameters: the hydraulic conductivity, k; the effective diffusion coefficient, Ds∗; the chemico-osmotic efficiency coefficient, ω; and the osmotic swelling pressure, usw. The proposed theoretical hydrochemicomechanical model has been validated through comparison with a large amount of experimental results.