INTRODUCTION TO

ENVIRONMENTAL PHYSICS

Transport of pollutants through

advection, diffusion and dispersion
 Introduction
Several characteristics of the source can affect the movement of air toxics while they are still
close to the source (e.g., source height, gas exit temperature). Once air toxics are transported
beyond the immediate vicinity of the source, atmospheric and meteorological factors
(particularly wind speed and direction) govern air toxics dispersion and transport. Transport is a
term that refers to the processes (e.g., winds) that carry or cause pollutants to move from one
location to another, especially over some distance.
Processes which move pollutants and other compounds through the air, surface water, or
subsurface environment or through engineered systems (for example, treatment reactors) are of
particular interest to environmental engineers and scientists. Pollutant transport acts to move
pollutants from the location at which they are generated, resulting in impacts which can be
distant from the pollution source
For example, if the wind is blowing toward the east, advection will carry any pollutants present
in the atmosphere toward the east. Similarly, if a bag of dye is emptied into the centre of a river,
advection will carry the resulting spot of dye downstream.
 ADVECTION

The transfer of heat or matter by the flow of a fluid, especially horizontally in the
atmosphere or the sea. The term advection refers to the transport of something
from one region to another.

In physics, engineering, and earth sciences, advection is a transport mechanism

of a substance by a fluid due to the fluid's bulk motion. An example of advection
is the transport of pollutants or silt in a river by bulk water flow downstream.
Another commonly advected quantity is energy. Here the fluid may be any
material that contains thermal energy, such as water or air.

The transfer of a property of the atmosphere, such as heat, cold, or humidity, by

the horizontal movement of an air mass: Today's temperatures were higher due
to the advection of warm air into the region.
 DIFFUSION
• Diffusion refers to the process by which molecules intermingle as a result of
their kinetic energy of random motion. Consider two containers of gas A and B
at same T and P, separated by a partition. The molecules of both gases are in
constant motion and make numerous collisions with the partition. If the
partition is removed as in the lower illustration, the gases will mix because of
the random velocities of their molecules. In time a uniform mixture of A and B
molecules will be produced in the container

• In the presence of a gradient of gas concentration,

molecular agitation is responsible for a transfer of mass,
generally referred to as “diffusion”.
• A distinguishing feature of diffusion is that it results in
mixing or mass transport, without requiring bulk motion
 DISPERSION
Dispersion generally means to spread out or distribute over an area.

The diffusion-like process that we will consider is similar to turbulence, in that it is a

result of variations in the movement of the water (or air) which carries our pollutant
In mechanical dispersion, these variations are the result of (a) variations in the flow
pathways taken by different fluid parcels that originate in the nearby locations near
one another, or (b) variations in the speed at which fluid travels in different regions.

Dispersion is a term applied to air toxics releases that means to spread or distribute
from a source, with (generally) a decrease in concentration with distance from the
source. Dispersion is affected by a number of factors including characteristics of the
source, the pollutants, and ambient atmospheric conditions.

Longitudinal dispersion is what causes contaminant plumes to spread out in the

direction of flow. The spreading is due to heterogeneity in the medium, such as a
distribution of pore sizes (and shapes). Dispersion perpendicular to the flow
direction is called transverse dispersion.
Transport of pollutants through groundwater flow
Advection describes mass transport simply due to the bulk flow
of water in which the mass is dissolved, or movement of solute as
a consequence of groundwater flow. Advection is the primary
process by which solutes move in the groundwater. The direction
and rate of transport coincides with that of groundwater. Mass
transport takes places at the average linear velocity of the
groundwater. Advection refers to transport with the mean fluid
flow