EN
Recently a numerous methods were designed for the in-situ treatment of contaminated groundwater, among them a versatile technology – Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRB). This environmentally safe technology requires the application of reactive materials with high specific surface areas (zeolite, activated carbon, zero-valent iron particles, etc.). This paper presents the review of laboratory methods commonly used for determination of specific surface area. More detailed description was included for the methylene blue sorption (MBS) method recommended for application in geotechnical practice. According to the test results obtained for zeolite and zeolite-sand mixtures it can be concluded that simple MBS method gives results comparable to more sophisticated methods.