This work presents the results of a bench-scale study to evaluate the applicability of biopile to treat crude oil-contaminated Brazilian soils. Tests were carried out in 20-liter piles, using two different batches of soils artificially contaminated. First set of essays was performed with piles contaminated with paraffin crude oil with average TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbons) of 39,442 mg/kg. Rice hull, sawdust and coconut hard core were used as bulking additive at 10% by volume. After 16 weeks of treatment, the best TPH degradation percentages achieved was achieved using no bulking agent (69.13%). The addition of bulking material did not improve the TPH degradation. Pile turn frequency had no influence at the efficiency of TPH degradation due to the small scale used in the essays. Another test was carried out with a clayey soil (soil B). In this case, the rice hull amendment improved soil permeability and retained more easily the water. These results could be explained by the less equilibrated texture and poor fertility (micro and macro nutrients) of soil B. Higher frequency of pile mixing (each 7 days) had not shown any advantage to the contamination disappearing due to the small scale used in the essays. The results obtained demonstrate that clayey soils can be remediated to acceptable levels within a reasonable time.
This study concerned the fragility of maritime Antarctic soils under increasing temperature, using the C dynamics and structural characteristics of humic substances as indicators. Working with four representative soils from King George Island (Lithic Thiomorphic Cryosol (LTC1 and LTC2), Ornithogenic Cryosol (OG) and Gelic Organosol (ORG)) we evaluated the total organic C and nitrogen contents, the oxidizable C and humic substances. Soil samples were incubated to assess the amount of C potentially mineralizable at temperatures typical of an Antarctic summer (5-148C). Humic acids showed a higher aliphatic character and a smaller number of condensed aromatic groups, which suggests that these molecules from Antarctic soils are generally less resistant to microbial degradation than humic acids molecules from other regions. Based on 13 C NMR spectra of MAS and CP/MAS, samples of soil humic acids of mineral soils (LTC1 and LTC2) have a higher content of aliphatic C, and heteroatom C, with lower levels of carbonyl and aromatic C, when compared with organic matter-rich soils (OG and ORG). Increasing incubation temperature led to a higher rate of mineralizable C in all soils. A sequence of soil fragility was suggested -LTC1 and LTC2 . OG . ORG -which showed a correlation with the Q10 coefficient and the ratio of labile and recalcitrant C fractions of soil organic matter (R 2 5 0.83).
Before Petrobras started its commercial oil production in the middle of the Amazon forest, in 1988, a group of Brazilian scientists established the highest world-wide sustainability standards for all E&P activities in this sensitive ecosystem. However, due to importance of Amazonian biodiversity and the others environmental services provided by the forest, Petrobras’ Research Center (CENPES), together with Brazilian scientific institutes, started a five year project to improve the eco-efficiency of Urucu oil and gas production province (located about 680 km southwest of Manaus) activities called EcoUrucu. This project deals with wide broad of subjects such as: water resources, solid waste and wastewater management, energy efficiency, gas emissions, reforestation, biodiversity, and soil erosion control. EcoUrucu project started in 2006 with thirteen studies, and during its development three more were added. Some of them had already been finished with results like the publication of a book about Urucu biodiversity, process plant energy efficiency analysis, evaluation of wastewater system and reuse proposition, process modification to reduce water use on process, and the reduction of solid waste generated from the food service. Local hydrogeology assessment, improvement of local pavement quality, advance of reforestation techniques, and soil erosion vulnerability assessment are some of the studies on going. This paper presents some the results already achieved by these studies. One of the conclusions is that a proactive approach related to environmental issues is the better way to guarantee the sustainability of Petrobras E&P activities in the Amazonian Region.
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