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INNOVATIVE
TECHNOLOGIES Poster Session
Innovative
Methods of Treating Groundwater and Soil Gas Containing
VOCs and SVOCs
Shannon L. Daigle and Craig
C. Lizotte, Environmental Science Services, Inc. and Kelly
J. McQueeney, Envirogen, Inc.
A 93-acre site containing a
variety of Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and
Semi-Volatile Organic Compounds (SVOCs) in soil and
groundwater will be remediated by hydraulically containing
groundwater at the site perimeter, dewatering the source
area then applying Soil Vapor Extraction (SVE) to the
dewatered vadose zone soil. Site hydraulic control is
achieved by pumping groundwater from four perimeter wells
installed to depths of approximately 60 feet. Dewatering
in the 9-acre source area is achieved through groundwater
pumping at 37 dual extraction wells installed to depths
between approximately 40 and 60 feet. Inorganics in the
extracted groundwater are removed by single stage pH
precipitation/flocculation, clarification and filtration.
SVOCs and VOCs are destroyed by a 60 kW Ultraviolet
Oxidation system, a 900 scfm shallow tray air stripper,
two 2,000 pound peroxide destruction units, and two 2,000
pound carbon polish units. The SVE treatment system
consists of 46 shallow and 86 deep SVE wells, operating at
wellhead vacuums of 8 to 16 inches of mercury vacuum. The
design air extraction rate of the SVE system is
approximately 2,200 scfm. Soil gas is drawn from the
vadose zone using a combination of two 100-Hp and one
25-Hp rotary positive displacement blowers. Extracted soil
gas is treated through a 1.0 MMBTU/hr Catalytic Oxidation
unit using propane as a supplemental fuel. Acid gases,
generated by the oxidation of chlorinated solvents, are
then removed from the treated vapor stream using an acid
gas scrubber. Treated soil gas effluent is combined with,
treated groundwater treatment system offgas and discharged
to the atmosphere through a 65 foot steel, fiberglass
reinforced polyethylene lined discharge stack. To date,
preliminary testing indicates the groundwater treatment
system has achieved over 99.9% destruction of VOCs and
SVOCs. The vapor treatment system has yet to be activated.
Commercializing
Innovative Technologies in the Environmental Remediation
Marketplace
David L. Fleming, Thermal Remediation Services, Inc.
As new, innovative technologies transition from the
laboratory to the commercial marketplace they are often
caught in the "Valley of Death" so to speak
where the commercializing process can stagnate and end.
The "Valley of Death" refers to a point in time
during commercialization where the technology provider or
vendor exhausts their resources, gets stuck and goes out
of business.
This presentation will focus on how to avoid the
"Valley of Death" and the steps to take to climb
the mountain of successful technology deployment. A
commercializing model will be presented that incorporates
team building and leveraging existing networks and
resources that were utilized for the deployment of the
Six-Phase Heating (SPH) technology.
An
Innovative Technology for Characterizing Hydrocarbon
Contaminated Sites
Dr. Pradeep U. Kurup, Ceretha M. Fernandes, and Deepti
K. Nair, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Substantial amounts of resources are being spent every
year for subsurface investigations to characterize and
clean-up contaminated sites. Conventional methods of site
characterization based on borehole drilling, sampling and
laboratory testing is time consuming, expensive, and
require disposal of contaminated drilling fluids, cuttings
and soil samples. There is also the added risk of human
exposure to toxic chemicals. Volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) such as Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Xylene, and
TCE are found in a variety of products like gasoline,
paints, plastics, and solvents. These VOCs are important
environmental contaminants because they are mobile,
persistent and toxic. This paper describes a novel in-situ
technology for characterizing VOCs in soils, sediments and
water by automated odor recognition. A prototype
"Electronic Nose" has been developed for rapidly
sniffing and characterizing vapors. The two main
components of the electronic nose are the sensing system
that mimics the biological nose, and the automated pattern
recognition system that simulates the human brain. The
pattern recognition system is based on computational
paradigms such as artificial neural networks and principal
component analysis. The sensing system is an array of
several different chemical sensors. Each chemical vapor
presented to the sensor array produces a signature or
pattern characteristic of the vapor. Different chemicals
are presented to the sensor array, to build a database of
signatures. This database of labeled signatures is then
used to train a pattern recognition system. The trained
neural network model is capable of uniquely identifying
vapors by making comparisons with the library of
signatures in its database. Future research will involve
integrating this novel sensing technology with an in situ
probe for safe, rapid, and economical characterization of
contaminated sites.
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