sandy soil salinity tests

[Shadihamdan]

what is the best method to contaminate a commercial Silica sand with sodium chloride to a desired salt concentration?
I'm running an experiment in electrokinetic soil remediation using silica sandy soil..Silica sand is clean sand, how can I achieve a 500 ppm salt concentration in this commercial sand?

 

[bimr]

500 ppm is equivalent to 0.05%.

Sand weighs approximately 100 lbs/ cu ft. Add 0.05 lbs of salt to each cu. ft. of sand.

 

[Shadihamdan]

Thank you for your answer but I guess my question was not clear enough ..;
theoretically you may be right ! but how in practice ? should I add dry salt to dry sand and then moisture the sand or prepare a salt solution with the desired concentration and then add it to the sand??

 

[bimr]

It will depend on how much moisture you want. You also have not said experiment details either. Is it a 1 liter sample or 1,000 acres?

 

[Shadihamdan]

The sand I have has a bulk density of 1.6 g/cm3 and 2.65 g/cm3 particles density I need to fill it in a column of volume of 557.27 cm3, it has to be fully saturated and with specific salt concentration ... my sand originally is cleaned sand ! so I will need to contaminated with salt to a desired concentration lets say 500 ppm of NaCl ?
please ask me more if things still unclear !

 

[bimr]

Sodium chloride is highly soluble and any excess will run off with the water. I would add enough sodium chloride and water to fill the void space in the sand.

I would start with dry sand. Since sand has approximately 45% void space, determine the water volume.

557.27 cm3 * 45% = 250 cm3 of water to fill the void space. Dry sand weighs 1.6 kg per cm3. Water weighs 1 kg per cm3

Weight of sand = 557.27 *1.6 = 891 kg

Weight of water = 250 * 1 = 250 kg

Total weight = 891 + 250 = 1141 kg

NaCl required = 0.05% * 1141 = 0.57 kg