Niels Hartog

KWR Water Research Institute · Water Systems & Technology Research Group

The use of multiple partially penetrating wells (MPPW) during aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) in brackish aquifers can significantly improve the recovery efficiency (RE) of unmixed injected water. The water quality changes by reactive transport processes in a field MPPW-ASR system and their impact on RE were analyzed. The oxic freshwater injecte...

Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) is a promising method of increasing water availability in water stressed areas by subsurface infiltration and storage, to overcome periods of drought, and to stabilize or even reverse salinization of coastal aquifers. Moreover, MAR could be a key technique in making alternative water resources available, such as reuse...

Aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) is a technology with worldwide potential to provide sustainable space heating and cooling using groundwater stored at different temperatures. The thermal recovery efficiency is one of the main parameters that determines the overall energy savings of ATES systems and is affected by storage specifics and site-spe...

During construction dewatering, artificial recharge with wells might be required to discharge the pumped groundwater. On the one hand, artificial recharge wells must be placed as close as possible to the construction site to limit the above-ground space for the dewatering infrastructure and the transport costs, while on the other hand, the distance...

Source zones containing tar, a dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL), can contaminate groundwater for centuries. A common occurrence of tar is at former Pintsch gas factories. Little is known about the composition and fate of contaminants dissolving from Pintsch gas tar DNAPL. In this study, we determined the composition and water-soluble characte...

Methane is a common constituent of groundwater with multiple possible origins. Elevated methane concentrations may also result from anthropogenically induced pathways between the deep and shallow subsurface caused by oil and gas production. A baseline characterisation of methane occurrence and origin in the subsurface of the Netherlands was made us...

Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) has great potential to mitigate CO2 emissions associated with the heating and cooling of buildings and offers wide applicability. Thick productive aquifer layers have been targeted first, as these are the most promising areas for ATES. Regardless, there is currently an increasing trend to target more complex aq...

The technical and economic success of an Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) system depends strongly on its thermal recovery efficiency, i.e. the ratio of the amount of energy that is recovered to the energy that was injected. Typically, conduction most strongly determines the thermal recovery efficiency of ATES systems at low storage temperature...

Heating and cooling of buildings accounts for ~25% of the primary energy end use, hence is critical to decarbonize. In many climatic conditions heating and cooling systems can be decarbonized using seasonal thermal energy storage to overcome the mismatch in availability and demand [1], with Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) being an example sys...

High-Temperature Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (HT-ATES) systems have the potential to cost-effectively store large volumes of thermal energy, bridging the supply-demand gap for variable renewable heat sources, such as solar thermal or power-2-heat conversion [3, 4]. These systems involve the injection and extraction of heated and cooled groundwat...

The occurrence of free thermal convection negatively affects thermal recovery efficiencies of High-Temperature Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (HT-ATES) systems. In this study the potential of applying a Multiple Partially Penetrating Well (MPPW) configuration to counteract the impact for seasonal HT-ATES is tested through numerical modeling with SE...

The suitability of high temperature aquifer thermal energy storage (HT-ATES) systems, among many other applications in the subsurface, is for a large extent determined by the hydrogeological aquifer properties. Important subsurface properties that are challenging to fully determine in the field are the hydraulic conductivity, the vertical variation...

Sustained environmental and human health protection is threatened by ~350,000 chemicals available in global markets, plus new biological entities including coronaviruses. These water-quality hazards challenge the proponents of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) who seek to ensure the integrity of groundwater. A risk-based regulatory framework accountin...

Governments and companies have set high targets in avoiding CO 2 emissions and reducing energy. Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) systems can contribute by overcoming the temporal mismatch between the availability of sustainable heat (during summer) and the demand for heat (during winter). Therefore, ATES is an increasingly popular technique; c...

For efficient operation of heating and cooling grids, underground thermal energy storage (UTES) can be a key element. This is due to its ability to seasonally store heat or cold addressing the large mismatch between supply and demand. This technology is already available and there are many operational examples, both within and outside a district he...

Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) interventions are usually designed for local water availability. However, regional hydrogeological conditions can be of major influence on the suitability and performance, depending on MAR type and size. Therefore, to facilitate site selection and suitable MAR scheme design and conditions, it is important to incorpora...

The anaerobic degradation of aromatic hydrocarbons in a plume originating from a Pintsch gas tar-DNAPL zone was investigated using molecular, isotopic- and microbial analyses. Benzene concentrations diminished at the relatively small meter scale dimensions of the nitrate reducing plume fringe. The ratio of benzene to toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes...

Larger well diameters allow higher groundwater abstraction rates. But particularly for the construction of wells at greater depth, it may be more cost‐efficient to only expand the borehole in the target aquifer. However, current drilling techniques for unconsolidated formations are limited by their expansion factors (<2) and diameters (<1000 mm). T...

Climate change strongly influences freshwater supply and demand globally. Warming of ~1°C over the last half century globally has directly impacted the supply of freshwater through the amplification of precipitation extremes, more frequent and pronounced floods and droughts, increasing evapotranspiration rates, rising sea levels, and changing prec...

The primary energy use of ATES systems evaluated for high and low aquifer utilisation levels. • High aquifer utilisation levels reduce energy use of individual systems, as more wells can be placed. • The highest aquifer utilization level considered is 115% and resulted in 82% ATES adoption. • For aquifer utilization <80%, energy use of buildings is...

In the energy transition, multi-energy systems are crucial to reduce the temporal, spatial and functional mismatch between sustainable energy supply and demand. Technologies as power-to-heat (PtH) allow flexible and effective utilisation of available surplus green electricity when integrated with seasonal heat storage options. However, insights and...

Iron(II) concentrations in fresh groundwater in Dutch aquifers range from absent up to 50 mg/l. Evaluation of extensive chemical data sets learned that the maximum logarithmic concentration of iron(II) in aquifers, between ± 6.5 < pH < ± 8, is a linear function of pH, governed by Siderite. It is a broad relation due to oversaturation with respect t...

A wide variety of well drilling techniques and well completion methods is used in the installation of dewatering and artificial recharge wells for the purpose of construction dewatering. The selection of the optimal well type is always a trade-off between the overall costs of well completion and development, the optimal well hydraulics of the well...

Under certain flow conditions, fluid flow through porous media starts to deviate from the linear relationship between flow rate and hydraulic gradient. At such flow conditions, Dar-cy's law for laminar flow can no longer be assumed and nonlinear relationships are required to predict flow in the Forchheimer regime. To date, most of the nonlinear flo...

Methane leakage caused by well integrity failure was assessed at 28 abandoned gas wells and 1 oil well in the Netherlands, which have been plugged, cut and buried to below the ground surface (≥3 mbgl). At each location, methane concentrations were thoroughly scanned at the surface. A static chamber setup was used to measure methane flow rates from...

The Gisborne MAR project aims to reverse long-term decline of water levels, increase yield and improve water quality of the Makauri alluvial gravel aquifer used for high-value crop irrigation. Therefore, a trial injection of oxic Waipaoa river water into the anoxic highly-mineralised Makauri aquifer through Aquifer Storage Transfer and Recovery (AS...

Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) systems combined with a heat pump save energy for space heating and cooling of buildings. In most countries the temperature of the stored heat is allowed up to 25-30°C. However, when heat is available at higher temperatures (e.g. waste heat, solar heat), it is more efficient to store higher temperatures because...

Energy consumption for space heating and cooling of buildings can be decreased by 40-80% by use of Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES). ATES is a proven technique, however, it is not known how efficient currently operating systems are recovering stored energy from the subsurface and how this can be determined with available data. Recent research...

To minimize fossil fuel combustion, geothermal heat production is increasingly applied in the horticultural sector and for domestic heating in The Netherlands. One of the major operational challenges for further development of geothermal energy in The Netherlands is dealing with the large volumes of geothermal brine that are produced during well de...

Methane leakage caused by well integrity failure was assessed at 28 abandoned gas wells and 1 oil well in the Netherlands, which have been plugged, cut and buried to below the ground surface (≥3 mbgl). At each location, methane concentrations were thoroughly scanned at the surface. A static chamber setup was used to measure methane flow rates from...

Aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) is a technology with worldwide potential to provide sustainable space heating and cooling using groundwater stored at different temperatures. The thermal recovery efficiency is one of the main parameters that determines the overall energy savings of ATES systems and is affected by storage specifics and site-spe...

Industrial use has led to the presence of liquid elemental mercury (Hg0) worldwide in the subsurface as Dense NonAqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL), resulting in long lasting sources of contamination, which cause harmful effects on human health and detrimental consequences on ecosystems. However, to date, insight into the infiltration behaviour of elemen...

Liquid elemental mercury occurrence in the subsurface as DNAPL is reported worldwide in proximity of several industrial facilities, such as chlor-alkali plants. Insight into Hg0 DNAPL infiltration behaviour is lacking and, to date, there are no experimental observations of its infiltration and distribution in water saturated porous media, except fo...

Mercury is a contaminant of global concern due to its harmful effects on human health and for the detrimental consequences of its release in the environment. Sources of liquid elemental mercury are usually anthropogenic, such as chlor-alkali plants. To date insight into the infiltration behaviour of liquid elemental mercury in the subsurface is lac...

Blowouts present a small but genuine risk when drilling into the deep subsurface and can have an immediate and significant impact on the surrounding environment. Nevertheless, studies that document their long-term impact are scarce. In 1965, a catastrophic underground blowout occurred during the drilling of a gas well in The Netherlands, which led...

Bodemenergiesystemen worden veelvuldig toegepast om energie te besparen. De warmtepomp van zulke systemen gebruikt echter nog altijd veel elektriciteit, waardoor voor grootschalige toepassing ook grootschalige netverzwaring nodig is. Daarom is het voor de verduurzaming van de gebouwde omgeving belangrijk om alternatieve duurzame technieken voor ver...

In several places in The Netherlands, industrial areas are redeveloped into residential areas with sustainable heating systems based on aquifer thermal energy storages (ATES). At these sites, groundwater is contaminated with chlorinated ethenes. In this project various pilot set-ups were tested as a non-invasive technique to remove chlorinated ethe...

Different types of managed aquifer recharge (MAR) schemes are widely distributed and applied on various scales and for various purposes in the European countries, but a systematic categorization and compilation of data has been missing up to now. The European MAR catalogue presented herein contains various key parameters collected from the availabl...

To be able to overcome water shortages, Abu Dhabi Emirate started an Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) project with desalinated seawater (DSW) as source water near Liwa. It is the largest DSW-ASR project in the world (stored volume ~10 Mm³/year), and should recover potable water for direct use. DSW is infiltrated into a desert dune sand aquifer us...

In this work we introduce a 1-D analytical solution that can be used for the design of horizontal permeable reactive barriers (HPRBs) as a vapor mitigation system at sites contaminated by chlorinated solvents. The developed model incorporates a transient diffusion-dominated transport with a second-order reaction rate constant. Furthermore, the mode...

Aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES) is a technology to sustainably provide space heating and cooling. Particularly in The Netherlands the number of ATES systems has grown rapidly in the past decade, often with the (re)development of urban areas. To meet objectives for greenhouse gas emission reduction the number of ATES systems is expected and re...

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The efficiency of heat recovery in high-temperature (>60 °C) aquifer thermal energy storage (HT-ATES) systems is limited due to the buoyancy of the injected hot water. This study investigates the potential to improve the efficiency through compensation of the density difference by increased salinity of the injected hot water for a single injection-...

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-degrading bacteria capable of growing under electrokinetic conditions were isolated using an adjusted acclimation and enrichment procedure based on soil contaminated with heavy PAHs in the presence of an electric field. Their ability to degrade heavy PAHs under an electric field was individually investigated in...

The temperature inside wells used for gas, oil and geothermal energy production, as well as steam injection, is in general significantly higher than the groundwater temperature at shallower depths. While heat loss from these hot wells is known to occur, the extent to which this heat loss may result in density-driven flow and in mixing of surroundin...

Highlights • Published rate constants for pH-independent TCE oxidation by MnO4- lack consistency • Inapt use of pseudo-1st-order approach yields bias in rate constant estimates • Negative bias in 2nd-order rate constant estimates is below 5% for P/N over 40 • Range in rate constant estimates for pH-dependent oxidation calls for further study

Permeable reactive barriers are commonly used to treat contaminant plumes in the saturated zone. However, no known applications of horizontal permeable reactive barriers (HPRBs) exist for oxidizing volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the unsaturated zone. In this study, laboratory column experiments were carried out to investigate the ability of a...

The horticultural sector is making increasing use of geothermal heat as a renewable substitute for the burning of natural gas. However, so far many of the completed geothermal systems in the Netherlands do not function as planned. After heat extraction, the water is reinjected into the reservoir. A frequent problem with this is the poor injectivity...

Water quality deterioration is a common occurrence that may limit the recovery of injected water during aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) operations. This limitation is often induced by the oxidation of the reduced aquifer components by the oxygenated injection water. This study explores the potential of aquifer pre-oxidation using permanganate to...

Bioremediation is a safe and cost-effective technology for the removal of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contaminated soils, but its remediation rate is usually very slow at soils contaminated with heavy PAHs in high concentrations. This paper describes the feasibility of using electrokinetics to enhance the degradation of heavy PAHs in so...

NanoRem (Taking Nanotechnological Remediation Processes from Lab Scale to End User Applications for the Restoration of a Clean Environment) is a research project, funded through the European Commission’s Framework 7 research programme. NanoRem focuses on facilitating practical, safe, economic and exploitable nanotechnology for in situ remediation....

Mercury is a contaminant of global concern. The use of elemental mercury in various (former) industrial processes, such as chlorine production at chlor-alkali plants, is known to have resulted in soil and groundwater contaminations worldwide. However, the subsurface transport behaviour of elemental mercury as an immiscible dense non-aqueous phase l...

The present study evaluated the coupling interactions between bioremediation (BIO) and electrokinetics (EK) in the remediation of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) by using bio-electrokinetics (BIO-EK) with a rotatory 2-D electric field. The results demonstrated an obvious positive correlation between the degradation extents of TPH and electric in...

The main aim of this work was to assess the potential of in situ carbonation as a treatment to modify the properties of alkaline materials such as industrial soil in terms of leaching behaviour and mineralogy and to store the CO2 generated by specific treatments applied in the context of Brownfield regeneration. The process was investigated through...

The use of permanganate solutions for in-situ chemical oxidation (ISCO) is a well-established groundwater remediation technology, particularly for targeting chlorinated ethenes. The kinetics of oxidation reactions is an important ISCO remediation design aspect that affects the efficiency and oxidant persistence. The overall rate of the ISCO reactio...

The technical feasibility of using stopper-derived cork as an effective biosorbent towards bivalent mercury at environmentally relevant concentrations and conditions was evaluated in this study. Only 25 mg/L of cork powder was able to achieve 94 % of mercury removal for an initial mercury concentration of 500 μg/L. It was found that under the condi...

This document presents the opportunities that Aquifer storage and recovery (AS