Researchers Offer DOD New Hazardous Waste Clean-up Methods

CONTACT: Lia Unrau

PHONE: (713)
831-4793

E-MAIL: unrau@rice.edu

RESEARCHERS OFFER DOD NEW HAZARDOUS WASTE CLEAN-UP
METHODS

The Department of Defense (DOD)
should consider applying several new technologies to cleaning up hazardous
wastes, researchers recommend in a report summarizing the results of a four-year
project. In some cases the technologies are faster, cheaper and more effective
than current methods.

Technologies studied in the project were aimed at soil and
ground water cleanup, difficult cleanups, and lowering costs of cleanup.
Evaluations were aimed at performance of 10 technologies for use at DOD sites
and critical analyses of their commercialization potential.

The Advanced Applied Technology Demonstration Facility (AATDF),
sponsored by the DOD and headquartered at Rice University, was funded in 1993
with a $19.3 million grant. Its goal was to demonstrate methods of hazardous
waste cleanup. Research was conducted by a consortium of universities and
supported by industry and government agencies.

Reports on the projects will be sent to the DOD. Several of the
technologies are already being used, others are being recommended for use by the
DOD, and others will continue to be tested.

Some of the projects focused on contaminants that are difficult
to clean up, such as chemicals associated with the energy industry called heavy
hydrocarbons, dense liquids called chlorinated solvents, and difficult soil
conditions, such as tight clays.

“Most of the easy environmental remediation problems have been
addressed with readily available technology, frequently at great expense to
industry, government and the public at large,” says Herb Ward, director of the
AATDF and the Foyt Family Professor in Environmental Science and Engineering at
Rice. “However, we have no technology that is affordable that can solve our most
difficult subsurface and ground water contamination problems. Our program has
changed that. Because of the AATDF program, we now have several new and
innovative technologies for hazardous waste cleanup.”

The partnership has led to detailed performance and cost data
on emerging cleanup technologies and, in some cases, to the creation of
engineering design manuals and commercialization summaries.

The AATDF produced the first reference manual detailing how to
use solvents and surfactants to remove light and dense nonaqueous phase liquids,
particularly stubborn contaminants, from beneath the ground.

“We feel we accomplished what we set out to do–to select and
carefully test the most promising innovative environmental remediation
technologies for clean up of DOD sites,” says Carroll L. Oubre, program manager
of the AATDF.

Universities participating in the AATDF include Rice
University, Stanford University, University of Texas, Lamar University,
University of Waterloo and Louisiana State University. The U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers Waterways Experiment Station manages the AATDF grant for the
DOD.

The AATDF program has demonstrated that government, industry
and academia can work together as an efficient and effective team in moving
research and development ideas into the field and toward
commercialization.

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