Evaluation of abiotic fate mechanisms in soil slurry bioreactor treatment
- Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH (United States)
- IT Corp., Cincinnati, OH (United States); and others
Biological treatment of contaminated soil slurries may offer a viable technology for soil bioremediation. Slurry bioreactor treatment of soils, however, has not sufficiently progressed to be a durable, reliable, and cost-effective treatment option. Critical to the evaluation of slurry bioreactors is a better description of pollutant mass transfer during the treatment phase. Losses attributable to abiotic means are generally overlooked in field application of the technology. Discussions with EPA regional personnel and inspection of active soil slurry bioreactor operations have identified operational problems such as foaming which could result in possible abiotic loss. Field bioslurry operations have adopted various approaches to reduce foaming: (1) the addition of defoaming agents, (2) the reduction of rotational speed of the agitator, and (3) the reduction of gas flow through the bioreactor system. We have conducted two bench-scale slurry bioreactor treatability studies, at the U.S. EPA Testing & Evaluation Facility in Cincinnati, Ohio, which were designed to investigate some of the operating factors leading to foam formation and identify the most advantageous means to deal with foaming. The initial study has been previously presented as a general treatability study for treatment of creosote contamination in a soil. During this study, foaming became a major problem for operation. The foaming conditions were mitigated by use of defoamer and, in the more extreme cases, through reduction of the mixer rotational speed and gas flow. A subsequent study which was devoted specifically to investigating the causes and conditions of foaming using a different batch of soil from the same site as the earlier study showed little foaming at the very beginning of the study.
- OSTI ID:
- 111473
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-9504110-; TRN: 95:005009-0015
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 21. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) annual Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory research symposium, Cincinnati, OH (United States), 4-6 Apr 1995; Other Information: PBD: 1995; Related Information: Is Part Of 21st Annual RREL research symposium: Abstract proceedings; PB: 398 p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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