Treatment technology for remediation of wood preserving sites: Overview

Abstract

This is the first in a series of five articles describing the applicability, performance, and cost of technologies for the remediation of contaminated soil and water at wood preserving sites. Site‐specific treatability studies conducted under the supervision of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA), National Risk Management Research Laboratory (NRMRL), from 1995 through 1997 constitute much of the basis for the evaluations presented, although data from other treatability studies, literature sources, and actual site remediations have also been included to provide a more comprehensive evaluation of remediation technologies. This article provides an overview of the wood preserving sites studied, including contaminant levels, and a summary of the performance of the technologies evaluated. The subsequent articles discuss the performance of each technology in more detail. Three articles discuss technologies for the treatment of soils, including solidification/stabilization, biological treatment, solvent extraction and soil washing. One article discusses technologies for the treatment of liquids, water and nonaqueous phase liquids (NAPLS), including biological treatment, carbon adsorption, photolytic oxidation, and hydraulic containment. The reader should be aware that other technologies including, but not limited to, incineration, thermal desorption, and base catalyzed dehalogenation, also have application for treating contaminants on wood preserving sites. They are not discussed in these five articles since the focus was to evaluate lesser known and hopefully lower cost approaches. However, the reader should include consideration of these other technologies as part of any evaluation or screening of technologies applicable to remediation of wood preserving sites.

Optimizing removal of arsenic, chromium, copper, pentachlorophenol and polychlorodibenzo-dioxins/furans from the 1–4 mm fraction of polluted soil using an attrition process

“…[31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] According to Stinson et al [40], the use of a biodegradation process allowed the removal of more than 94% of PCP initially present at concentrations ranging from 130 to 680 mg.kg -1 . Bates et al [41] showed that more than 82% of PAHs were removed after 400 days of treatment using a bioremediation process. Immobilisation techniques seemed to be efficient to simultaneously remove organic and inorganic contaminants from soils [42].…”

“…According to Xiao et al [49], soil washing in an alkaline medium (pH > 12) seemed to be very effective for the solubilization of PCP, with removal yields reaching 90%. The use of dimethyl ether (soil/dimethyl ether = 1/1), at 48°C was effective for the solubilization of more than 95% of the PCDDF and PCP originally present in [41] showed that the use of nonionic surfactant enhances the performances of soil washing to remove PAHs, PCP and PCDDF from contaminated soils. Indeed, these authors highlighted that the addition of a surfactant allowed an improvement of contaminants removals from 69 to 78%.…”

Dehalococcoides mccartyi Strain JNA Dechlorinates Multiple Chlorinated Phenols Including Pentachlorophenol and Harbors at Least 19 Reductive Dehalogenase Homologous Genes

“…Currently the greatest sources of contamination are wood treatment facilities, landfills, and hazardous waste sites. More than 700 wood preserving sites have been identified in the United States, and many of these are contaminated with PCP. , Furthermore, the CERCLA Public Access Database lists 152 sites other than wood preserving sites that are contaminated with PCP . PCP leaches from these sites contaminating the groundwater.…”