Using aliphatic alcohols as gaseous tracers in determination of water contents and air–water interfacial areas in unsaturated sands

A new type of gaseous tracer utilizing nontoxic aliphatic alcohols for the determination of water content and air–water interfacial area is tested on unsaturated sands of low water content. Alcohol vapors are generated at room temperature and passed through the experimental sand column. Breakthrough curves (BTCs) of these vapors are obtained by monitoring their effluent concentrations using GC-FID. The retardation factor with respect to each vapor transport process is obtained by optimizing BTCs data using the CXTFIT program in the reverse problem mode. The water content and the interfacial area are subsequently calculated from their retardation factors by both equilibrium and nonequilibrium transport models. Experimental results indicate that the pentanol tracer is feasible in the determination of water content at conditions when the degree of water saturation is low. In the determination of air–water interfacial area, decanol is selected due to its interfacial adsorption characteristics. By comparing to interfacial areas from theoretical predictions as well as other conventional tarcer methods, the ones determined from the decanol tracer tests are found to be close to the true interfacial areas when the water content is low.

► Pentanol can be used as gaseous tracer to measure the water content in unsaturated soils.
► Decanol can be used as gaseous interfacial partitioning tracer to measure the true air -water interfacial area in unsaturated soils.
► The applicable upper limits in terms of degree of water saturation for the pentanol and decanol tracer methods are both around 0.2.