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Experimental study of the environmental and geotechnical properties of landfills under long-term leachate effects: macro–microscopic tests on in situ clays

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Abstract

Clay structures are widely used as impermeable barriers to landfill pollution, although waste can degrade for more than 30 years, no studies concerning the long-term service performance of clay layers under leachate have been reported. In this paper, the in situ clay leaching in landfill for more than 20 years was studied by drilling and sampling. The results show that clay particle contents in soils decreased under long-term leachate effects, causing the liquid limit and plasticity index of the soil to reduce substantially, and the plastic limit to decrease to a lesser extent. The internal friction angle of clay increased, its cohesion decreased, and its compressibility increased, which caused the hydraulic conductivity of clay to increase by 2–4 times at constant porosity following leachate interaction. The long-term effects of leachate led to a reduction in the number of clay minerals, such as montmorillonite, in the soil, the coalescence of soil particles, an increase in the volume of large pores by 132%, a decrease in the volume of small pores by 14.4%, and increased pore connectivity. When landfill waste is undergoing middle and later stages of degradation, the leachate pollutant diffusion depth in the bottom clay layer is approximately 1 m. Since the groundwater is not polluted, our results confirm that the long-term safety aspect of landfill meets the bottom clay impermeability requirements specified in GB16889-2008 (hydraulic conductivity < 10−7 cm/s, thickness > 2 m).

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Funding

This research was supported by the Special Fund for Basic Research on Scientific Instruments of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant numbers 51979267 and U20A20320); the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (grant number 2021327); the National Key Research and Development Program (grant number 2019YFC1804002); and the Wuhan Science and Technology Conversion Special Project (2018060403011348).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Geomechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Yong Wan, Dongdong Guo, Zhiwei Dong, Xinminnan Hui, Lei Liu & Qiang Xue

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yong Wan, Dongdong Guo, Zhiwei Dong, Xinminnan Hui, Lei Liu & Qiang Xue

  3. School of Urban Construction, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430065, China

    Ruiqi Liu

  4. IRSM-CAS/HK Poly U Joint Laboratory On Solid Waste Science, Wuhan, 430071, China

    Lei Liu & Qiang Xue

Authors
  1. Yong Wan
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  2. Dongdong Guo
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  3. Ruiqi Liu
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  4. Zhiwei Dong
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  5. Xinminnan Hui
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  6. Lei Liu
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  7. Qiang Xue
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Contributions

Yong Wan: conceptualization, resources, writing—original draft. Dongdong Guo: data curation, methodology, writing—review and editing. Ruiqi Liu: investigation, methodology. Xinminnan Hui: data curation, methodology. Zhiwei Dong: investigation, conceptualization, writing—review and editing. Lei Liu: supervision, writing—review and editing. Qiang Xue: supervision, resources funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Yong Wan.

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Wan, Y., Guo, D., Liu, R. et al. Experimental study of the environmental and geotechnical properties of landfills under long-term leachate effects: macro–microscopic tests on in situ clays. Bull Eng Geol Environ 81, 297 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-022-02782-0

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