Christian Wireko, Ph.D., (Florida) coauthored an article entitled “Effect of incineration ash leachates on the hydraulic conductivity of benonite-polymer composite geosynthetic clay liners” for Waste Management on December 17, 2021.

Christian’s coauthors were Tarek Abichou and Zhiming Zhang, Florida A&M University-Florida State University College of Engineering; Kuo Tian, George Mason University; and Binte Zianab, Tetra-Tech AAI.

Christian Wireko is a Geotechnical Engineer with experience in designing and permitting of waste disposal facilities and earthen embankments. Christian’s skills in geotechnical analyses and design include foundation design, slope stability, and settlement analyses. His field experience includes overseeing geotechnical field investigations and performing soil and groundwater sampling, and he has additional experience in laboratory testing of soils and geosynthetics.

Waste Management is devoted to the presentation and discussion of information on solid waste generation, characterization, minimization, collection, separation, treatment, and disposal as well as manuscripts that address waste management policy, education, and economic and environmental assessments. The journal addresses various types of solid wastes, including municipal (e.g., residential, institutional, and commercial), agricultural, and special (e.g., construction and demolition, household hazardous, sewage sludge, and non-hazardous industrial) wastes.

Abstract

A study was conducted to evaluate the hydraulic conductivity (k) of six bentonite-polymer composite (BPC) geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) using five synthetic municipal solid waste incineration ash (IA) leachates with ionic strength (I) ranging from 174 to1978 mM. The BPC GCLs contained a dry blend of bentonite and proprietary polymers and had polymer loading ranging from 0.5 to 5.5%. The polymers used in the BPC GCLs were classified as linear polymer (LP) or crosslinked polymer (CP) based on the swelling characteristics of specimens extracted from the GCLs. Comparable hydraulic conductivity tests were also performed on two conventional bentonite (CB) GCLs as controls. The BPC GCLs had k of 2.6 – 6.7 × 10-11 m/s when permeated with IA leachate with I = 174 mM, whereas the CB GCLs had k > 5.0 × 10-8 m/s when permeated with the same leachate. However, k of the BPC GCLs ranged from the order of 10-10 to 10-7 m/s when permeated with IA leachates with I > 600 mM. BPC GCLs with high polymer loading generally had lower k compared to those with lower polymer loading when permeated with the same IA leachate, regardless of the polymer type. Polymer eluted from the BPC GCLs containing LP during permeation with DI water or IA leachate. Unlike CPs, LPs are water-soluble, therefore, they seem to easily migrate during permeation. There was no correlation between the percentage of polymer retained and the final hydraulic conductivity of the LPB GCLs used in this study.

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About the article: Effect of incineration ash leachates on the hydraulic conductivity of bentonite-polymer composite geosynthetic clay liners
About Publication: Waste Management
For consultation regarding geosynthetic clay liners, contact Christian at cwireko@geosyntec.com
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