Transport of Escherichia coli through variably saturated sand columns and modeling approaches

A sand column leaching system with well-controlled suction and flow rate was built to investigate the effects on bacterial transport of air–water interface effects (AWI) correlated to water content, particle size, and column length. Adsorption of Escherichia coli strain D to silica sands was measured in batch tests. The average % adsorption for coarse and fine sands was 45.9 ± 7.8% and 96.9 ±3.2%, respectively. However, results from static batch adsorption experiments have limited applicability to dynamic bacterial transport in columns. The early breakthrough of E. coli relative to bromide was clear for all columns, namely c. 0.15 to 0.3 pore volume earlier. Column length had no significant effects on the E. coli peak concentration or on total recovery in leachate, indicating retention in the top layer of sands. Tailing of breakthrough curves was more prominent for all fine sand columns than their coarse sand counterparts. Bacterial recovery in leachate from coarse and saturated sand columns was significantly higher than from fine and unsaturated columns. Observed data were fitted by the convection–dispersion model, amended for one-site and two-site adsorption to particles, and for air–water interface (AWI) adsorption. Among all models, the two-site + AWI model achieved consistently high model efficiency for all experiments. Thus it is evident from experimental and modeling results that AWI adsorption plays an important role in E. coli transport in sand columns.