skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Bioslurping LNAPL contamination

Journal Article · · Pollution Engineering
OSTI ID:207914

Bioslurping is a new technology that combines two remediation methods--bioventing and vacuum-enhanced free product recovery--to provide an integrated solution to light non-aqueous phase liquid (LNAPL) contamination. Based on pilot studies and a number of field applications to date, for many sites bioslurping should prove faster, more effective and dramatically less costly than conventional LNAPL remediation techniques. Also, this technology will make it possible to clean up sites that were difficult, if not impossible, to remediate before. When petroleum hydrocarbons such as gasoline, jet or diesel fuel or heating oil are released into soil, they can accumulate as a layer of LNAPL on the water table. LNAPLs are difficult to remediate because they may appear as underground contaminants in any or all of the following four phases: Free phase--drainable LNAPL residing at the water table; Solution phase--LNAPL dissolved in the groundwater and pore water; Non-drainable phase--LNAPL retained in soil within the vadose zone, saturated zone and capillary fringe; Vapor phase--LNAPL volatilized and present within the vadose zone as soil gas.

OSTI ID:
207914
Journal Information:
Pollution Engineering, Vol. 28, Issue 3; Other Information: PBD: Mar 1996
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English