Convective-dispersive transport of solutes involved in sequential first-order decay reactions

Abstract Problems of solute transport involving sequential first-order decay reactions frequently occur in soil systems. Examples are the migration of radionuclides, in which the chain members form a first-order decay reaction, and the simultaneous movement of various interacting nitrogen species. This study presents analytical solutions that describe the simultaneous convective-dispersive transport of up to four species involved in such a consecutive chain reaction. Evaluation of the analytical solutions is not straightforward but requires, among other things, the calculation of complex complementary error functions. A FORTRAN IV computer program (CHAIN) that can be used to evaluate the analytical solutions is described. Application of this program to problems of solute transport is illustrated with two examples, one dealing with radionuclide transport and one with nitrification.

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