Fate of Methane and Ethanol-Blended Fuels in Soil: Laboratory and Field Experiments

Abstract:

Our research site is within the UC Davis Putah Creek Riparian Reserve in Davis, CA; climate is semi-arid and soils are sandy loams and silts. We are conducting three types of controlled release experiments in the field: 1) Gas mixture, a continuous release of methane, sometimes with other gases included, with the composition and release rate changing over time to allow examination of various hypotheses, 2) E10 (gasoline with 10% ethanol): a continuous release of E10 NAPL at rate equal to documented low rate releases from underground storage tanks (USTs) that are difficult or impossible to detect with current practical approaches (<0.04 gallons per day); 3) E85: release at same rate as the E10 release. In the field experiments, gas or NAPL is released from a stainless steel drive point with 0.5 cm slotted section at 1 m bgs; we monitor temperature, pressure, moisture content, and soil gas composition in the soil, and efflux of carbon dioxide, methane, oxygen, water vapor, and other species to/ from soil to atmosphere. Periodic coring allows examination of the microbial community composition with depth. Laboratory microcosm and column tests assisted in planning the E10 and E85 field experiments above, evaluated the effect of moisture content on methane oxidation, and allowed testing and refinement of the monitoring approaches in the field

We found that up to 40% of the methane released can be accounted for by efflux from soil to the atmosphere. The percentage in the efflux depends on the rate of release, and, based on literature and our microcosms with methane-spiked PCRR soils, we hypothesize that the very low moisture content of the soils in this drought year limits in situ methane oxidation. Efflux of carbon dioxide accounted for up to 20% of the E10 release rate under our lab column conditions, which we believe were oxygen-limited compared to the field conditions. We also detected low molecular weight hydrocarbons in the column efflux, though the concentrations were small and the total efflux accounted for a very small fraction of the E10 release rate. On the basis of the lab tests, the field experiments for E10 and E85 release were started in 2015. Selected results of these experiments will be discussed in the conference presentation.