The objective of the research was to measure the time of travel (TOT) of inorganic solutes through laboratory columns of compacted clay, to determine the physical and geochemical parameters that controlled solute transport through the soil columns, and to compare measured and predicted TOT's. Two clay soils were used: kaolinite (a low-plasticity, commercially-produced clay) and Lufkin clay (a highly plastic, naturally-occurring clay soil). Anionic tracers were chloride and bromide; potassium and zinc were the cationic tracers. Diffusion cells were designed, constructed, and used to measure the effective diffusion coefficient of the tracers in the two soils. Diffusion coefficients for anions were typically 0.000002 to 0.000007 sq cm/s; somewhat lower values were determined for cations. Column tests showed that the effective porosity ratio (defined as effective divided by total porosity) increased with increasing hydraulic gradient in kaolinite from a low of about 0.25 at a gradient of 1 to a high of 1 at a gradient of 20. With Lufkin clay, the effective porosity ratio was between 0.02 and 0.16. Breakthrough times were controlled much more by the low effective porosities than by molecular diffusion. The computer program SOILINER predicted times of travel that were larger than actual TOT's by a factor of up to 52. The failure to account for effective porosity ratios less than 1 was the cause for the poor predictions from SOILINER.

Includes bibliographical references. "EPA 600/2-91/021." Microfiche.