Diffusion of TCE into Soil

by Emily Varner

Submitted : Spring 2013

Using Fick’s Second Law, the rate at which trichloroethylene diffused into a sample of soil was calculated. The diffusion constant and TCE concentration I used was based on the Measurement of Apparent Diffusion of Trichloroethylene in Soil by Hunter Brenniman and Anderson. The calculations were done in an Excel doc. First, I calculated a set of constants that were the current concentration, the previous concentration and what would be the concentration in 21 nodes of 0.5cm2. Next, using the =minverse function, a matrices was created. The boundaries chosen were a time step of 60 seconds and a distance of 0.5cm2.

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