The Geochemist's Workbench (GWB) is an integrated set of interactive

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated software documentation, documentation and data (computing), data. This is in contrast to Computer hardware, hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. ...

tools for solving a range of problems in aqueous chemistry. The graphical user interface simplifies the use of the geochemical code.

History

The GWB package was originally developed at the Department of

Geology Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other Ea ...

of the

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

over a period of more than twenty years,Bethke, C.M., B. Farrell, and M. Sharifi, 2021, ''The Geochemist’s Workbench® Release 15 (five volumes)''. https://www.gwb.com/documentation.php under the sponsorship initially of a consortium of companies and government laboratories, and later through license fees paid by a community of users. In 2011, the GWB development team moved to the

Research Park The following is a list of science park, technology parks and biomedical parks of the world, organized by continent. Asia ASEAN Economic Community Report listing all the Economic Zones in the ASEAN Economic Community froUNIDO Viet Nam China ...

at the University of Illinois, and subsequently off campus in

Champaign Champaign ( ) is a city in Champaign County, Illinois, United States. The population was 88,302 at the 2020 census. It is the tenth-most populous municipality in Illinois and the fourth most populous city in Illinois outside the Chicago metropo ...

, IL, where they operate as an independent company named Aqueous Solutions LLC. Since its release, many thousands of licensed copies have been installed in more than 90 countries. In 2014, a free Student Edition of the software was released, and was later expanded in 2021 to a Community Edition free to all aqueous chemists.Community Edition website http://community.gwb.com An early version of the software was one of the first applications of

parallel Parallel is a geometric term of location which may refer to: Computing * Parallel algorithm * Parallel computing * Parallel metaheuristic * Parallel (software), a UNIX utility for running programs in parallel * Parallel Sysplex, a cluster of ...

vector computing, the predecessor to today's

multi-core processor A multi-core processor is a microprocessor on a single integrated circuit with two or more separate processing units, called cores, each of which reads and executes program instructions. The instructions are ordinary CPU instructions (such ...

s, to geological research. The current release is multithreaded, and as such retains features of the early parallel vector architecture.

Overview

The GWB is an integrated

geochemical modeling Geochemical modeling or theoretical geochemistry is the practice of using chemical thermodynamics, chemical kinetics, or both, to analyze the chemical reactions that affect geologic systems, commonly with the aid of a computer. It is used in high-t ...

package used for balancing

chemical reactions A chemical reaction is a process that leads to the chemical transformation of one set of chemical substances to another. Classically, chemical reactions encompass changes that only involve the positions of electrons in the forming and breaking ...

, calculating stability diagrams and the equilibrium states of natural waters, tracing reaction processes, modeling reactive transport, plotting the results of these calculations, and storing the related data. The Workbench, designed for personal computers running Microsoft Windows, is distributed commercially in three packages: GWB Professional, Standard, and Essentials, as well as in the free GWB Community Edition. GWB reads datasets of

thermodynamic Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws of the ...

equilibrium constants (most commonly compiled from 0 to 300 °C along the steam saturation curve) with which it can calculate chemical equilibria. Thermodynamic datasets from other popular programs like PHREEQC,Parkhurst, D.L., 1995, User's Guide to PHREEQC, a computer model for speciation, reaction-path, advective-transport and inverse geochemical calculations. US Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 95-4227.Parkhurst, D.L. and C.A.J. Appelo, 1999, User's Guide to PHREEQC (version 2), a computer program for speciation, batch-reaction, one-dimensional transport and inverse geochemical calculations. US Geological Survey Water-Resources Investigations Report 99-4259. PHRQPITZ, WATEQ4F,Ball, J.W. and D.K. Nordstrom, 1991, User's manual for WATEQ4F, with revised thermodynamic data base and test cases for calculating speciation of major, trace, and redox elements in natural waters. US Geological Survey Open File Report 91-183. and Visual MINTEQhem.bredband.net/b108693/-VisualMINTEQ_references.pdf have been formatted for the GWB, enabling comparison and validation of the different codes. The programs K2GWB, DBCreate, and logKcalc were written to generate thermodynamic data for GWB under pressures and temperatures beyond the limits of the default datasets. The GWB can couple chemical reaction with hydrologic transport to produce simulations known as reactive transport models. GWB can calculate flow fields dynamically, or import flow fields as numeric data or calculated directly from the

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

hydrologic flow code

MODFLOW MODFLOW is the U.S. Geological Survey modular finite-difference flow model, which is a computer code that solves the groundwater flow equation. The program is used by hydrogeologists to simulate the flow of groundwater through aquifers. The so ...

Uses in science and industry

Geochemists working in the field, office, lab, or classroom store their analyses, calculate the distribution of chemical mass, create plots and diagrams, evaluate their experiments, and solve real-world problems. The software is used by environmental chemists,

engineers Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the ...

microbiologists A microbiologist (from Greek ) is a scientist who studies microscopic life forms and processes. This includes study of the growth, interactions and characteristics of microscopic organisms such as bacteria, algae, fungi, and some types of para ...

, and remediators to gain quantitative understanding of the chemical and microbiological reactions which control the fate and mobility of contaminants in the biosphere. With this knowledge, they can develop predictive models of contaminant fate and transport, and test the effectiveness of costly remediation schemes before implementing them in the field. Within the energy industry, petroleum engineers, mining geologists,

environmental geochemists A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

and geothermal energy developers use the software to search for resources, optimize recovery, and manage wastes, all while using safe and environmentally friendly practices. Geoscientists manage the side effects of energy production in

carbon sequestration Carbon sequestration is the process of storing carbon in a carbon pool. Carbon dioxide () is naturally captured from the atmosphere through biological, chemical, and physical processes. These changes can be accelerated through changes in lan ...

projects and in the design of nuclear waste repositories.

Uses in education

Hundreds of scholarly articles cite or use GWB and several textbooks apply the software to solve common problems in environmental

protection Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...

and remediation, the

petroleum industry The petroleum industry, also known as the oil industry or the oil patch, includes the global processes of exploration, extraction, refining, transportation (often by oil tankers and pipelines), and marketing of petroleum products. The large ...

, and economic geology.Bethke, C.M., 2008, ''Geochemical and Biogeochemical Reaction Modeling''. Cambridge University Press, 547 pp.

Geochemistry Geochemistry is the science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems such as the Earth's crust and its oceans. The realm of geochemistry extends beyond the Earth, encompassing the ...

students can save time performing routine but tedious tasks that are easily accomplished with the software. Instead of balancing chemical reactions and constructing Eh-pH diagrams by hand, for example, students can spend time exploring advanced topics like multi-component equilibrium, kinetic theory, or reactive transport. A free download of The Geochemist's Workbench Community Edition is available from the developer's website.

Other geochemical modeling programs in common use

* Aqion
ChemEQLChemPluginCHESSHYTEC
*CHILLER, CHIM-XPT
CrunchFlowEQ3/EQ6GEMS-PSIGWB Community EditionHYDROGEOCHEMMINEQL+MINTEQA2PHREEQC
ref name="Parkhurst" />
TOUGHREACTVisual MINTEQ
ref name="Visual MINTEQ" />

ref name="Ball and Nordstrom" />

ref>Tipping E., 1994, WHAM - a chemical equilibrium model and computer code for waters, sediments and soils incorporating a discrete site/electrostatic model of ion-binding by humic substances. ''Computers and Geosciences'' 20, 973-1023.

References

External links

*
Community Edition website

Users group
{{DEFAULTSORT:Geochemist's Workbench Scientific simulation software Geology software