• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.25-33
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• 1999

The recent emergence of biofiltration as a cost effective waste-gas control technology has stimulated in European countries and the USA. Biofiltration of soil vapor extraction off-gas from gasoline contaminated site was simulated in lab-scale in this study. A filling material used was a compost. This study was conducted to evaluate biofiltration characteristics of the compost material for gasoline off-gas. TPH elimination capacity at the gas loading rate of about 50g/$\textrm{m}^3$((filling material)/hr was circa 40g/$\textrm{m}^3$((filling material)/hr. Removal rate of xylene was the highest among BTEX. while it was the lowest in case of bezene. The maximum elimination capacity of the compost was about 1.5g/$\textrm{m}^3$((filling material)/hr for benzene. More than 95% of trimethylbenzene and naphtalene were removed below the loading rate of 0.7g/㎥(filling material)/hr. About 80% of total TPH and BTEX were removed by biodegradation.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.35 no.3
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• pp.221-227
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• 2002

Column experiments were performed to evaluate the removal efficiency of soil vapor extraction (SVE) iota TCE (trichloroethylene) and toluene in soil. Homogeneous Ottawa sands and real soils collected from contaminated area were used to investigate the effect of soil properties and SVE operation conditions on the removal efficiency. In column teats with two different sizes of Ottawa sand, the maximum effluent TCE concentration in a coarse sand column was 442 mg/L and 337 mg/L in a fine sand column. However, after 20 liter gas flushing, the effluent concentrations were very similar and more than 90% of initial TCE mass were removed from the column. For two real contaminated soil columns, the maximum effluent concentration decreased 50% compared with that in the homogeneous Ottawa coarse sand column, but 99% of initial TCE mass were extracted from the column within 40 liter air flushing, suggesting that SVE is very available to remove volatile NAPLs in the contaminated soil. To investigate the effect of contaminant existing time on the removal efficiency, an Ottawa sand column was left stable for one week after TCE was injected and the gas extraction was applied into the column. Its effluent concentration trend was very similar to those for other Ottawa sand columns except that the residual TCE after the air flushing showed relatively high. Column tests with different water contents were performed and results showed high removal efficiency even in a high water content sand column. Toluene as one of BTEX compounds was used in an Ottawa sand column and a real soil column. Removal trends were similar to those in TCE contaminated columns and more than 98% of initial toluene mass were removed with SVE in both column.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.28-40
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• 2004

Box experiments were performed to evaluate the removal efficiency of SVE (soil vapor extraction) for gasoline in soil. An activated carbon sorption tower and a biofilter were operated as post-treatment processes to remove VOCs extracted from extraction wells of SVE. An acrylic resin box (65 cm${\times}$20 cm${\times}$30 cm) was used to make artificial soil layers and two injection wells and one extraction well were built for SVE process in the box. Gases from extraction wells flew into the activated carbon sorption tower or the biofilter. Gasoline concentrations of VOCs emitted from the extraction well were compared with those after post treatments. More than 92% of initial gasoline mass in soil were removed by SVE within few days, suggesting that SVE is very available to remove VOCs from contaminated soils. To treat VOCs from extraction wells of SVE, an activated carbon sorption tower and a biofilter were attached to SVE process and their gasoline removal efficiencies were measured. These post treatment systems lowered gasoline concentrations to below 1.0 ppm within few days. Average remediation efficiency was 98% of gasoline for the activated carbon sorption tower and 84.1% for the biofilter. The maximum removal capacity of a biofilter was 10.7 g/L/hr, which was ten times higher than general biofilter removal capacity. Results from the study suggest that the activated carbon sorption tower and the biofilter would be available for the post treatment process to remove VOCs generated from SVE process.

• Journal of Korea Soil Environment Society
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.3-15
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• 1999

This paper includes the basic experimental results performed for developing an innovative and technologically feasible process wherein gaseous ozone, a powerful oxidant. is injected directly into vadose zone by which in-situ chemical degradation of semi- or, non-volatile petroleum product such as diesel fuel is derived. As ozone gas injected continuously(50mL/min, 119.0$\pm$6.1mg/L) into soil packed columns artificially contaminated with diesel fuel(initial concentration 1,485mg-DRO/kg/soil), the removal rates at the inlet and outlet point of 14hrs-operated column are 87.9% and 100.0%, respectively. On the other hand, soil vapor extraction system showed less than 30% of removal rates of residual diesel both at the inlet and outlet samples under the same experimental conditions which confirms the limited treatability of SVE in diesel contaminated soil.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.5
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• pp.647-651
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• 2014

Handling of the large quantity of oil, generation of heavy metals at the military blasting range and outworn facilities could cause the environmental accidents. Pollution levels of the former five U.S military bases located in Uijeongbu, Gyeonggi-do were measured. Soil contamination by TPH (Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons), BTEX (Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Xylene), and heavy metals and groundwater contamination were detected. In order to purify contaminated soil, a variety of technologies including soil vapor extraction, slurping, landfarming and soil washing were applied. Contaminated soils of five target bases were purified and the results were suitable for the legal standards.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.6-12
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• 2005

Contamination of soils and groundwater by leakage of petroleum compounds from underground storage tanks (USTs) has become great environmental issues. Conventional methods such as soil vapor extraction (SVE) used for the remediation of unsaturated soils contaminated with volatile organic compounds might not be applied for the removal of semi-volatile organic compounds such as diesel fuels and PCBs, which have low volatility and high hydrophobicity. The objective of this study is to develop a hot air injection method to remove semi-volatile compounds. Additionally, operation parameters such as temperature, air flow rate, and water content are evaluated. Experimental results show that diesel ranged organics (DROs) are removed in the order of volatility of organic compounds. As expected, removal efficiency of organics is highly dependent on the temperature. It is considered that more than $90\%$ of organic contaminants whose carbon numbers range between 17 and 22 can be removed efficiently by the hot air injection-extraction method (modified SVE) over the $100^{\circ}C$. It is also found that increased air flow rate resulted in high removal rate of contaminants. However, air flow rate over 40 cc/min is not effective for the operation aspects, due to mass transfer limitation on the volatilization rate of the contaminants. The effect of the water content on the decane removal is minimal, but some components show large dependence on the removal efficiency with increasing water content.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.311-318
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• 2007

Soil contamination in Korea has been accelerated every year. Because of their persistence and cumulative tendency in the environment, soil contaminants have potential long-term environmental and health concerns and it is estimated to cost enormous expense for clean-up. Korea government has legislated the law on conservation of soil environment in mid 1990s, and managed and treated hazardous wastes in contaminated sites as a remediation policy since then. Soil remediation technologies are classified into in-situ/ex-situ or biological/physico-chemical/thermal processes according to applied places or treatment methods, respectively. In Korea, clean-up of polluted sites has been mostly carried out at military areas, railroad-related sites and small-scale oil spilt sites. For these cases, in-situ remediation technologies such as soil vapor extraction (SVE) and bioventing were mainly used. In recent days, an environmental-friendly soil remediation emerged as a new concept - for example, a new soil remediation process using nanotechnology or molecular biological study and an integrated process which can overcome the limitation of individual process. To have better applicability of remediation technologies, comprehensive understandings about the pollutants and soil characteristics and the suitable techniques are required to be investigated. Above all, development of environmental technologies based on the sustainability accompanied by public attention can improve soil environment in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.267-274
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• 2011

The environmental impacts of 95% remediation of a total petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil were evaluated using life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA of two remediation systems, soil vapor extraction (SVE) and biopile, were conducted by using imput materials and energy listed in a remedial system standardization report. Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) results showed that the environmental impacts of SVE were all higher than those of biopile. Prominent four environmental impacts, human toxicity via soil, aquatic ecotoxicity, human toxicity via surface water and human toxicity via air, were apparently found from the LCIA results of the both remedial systems. Human toxicity via soil was the prominent impact of SVE, while aquatic ecotoxicity was the prominent impact of biopile. This study also showed that the operation stage and the activated carbon replacement stage contributed 60% and 36% of the environmental impacts of SVE system, respectively. The major input affecting the environmental impact of SVE was electricity. The operation stage of biopile resulted in the highest contribution to the entire environmental impact. The key input affecting the environmental impact of biopile was also electricity. This study suggested that electricity reduction strategies would be tried in the contaminated-soil remediation sites for archieving less environmental impacts. Remediation of contaminated soil normally takes long time and thus requires a great deal of material and energy. More extensive life cycle researches on remedial systems are required to meet recent national challenges toward carbon dioxide reduction and green growth. Furthermore, systematic information on electricity use of remedial systems should be collected for the reliable assessment of environmental impacts and carbon dioxide emissions during soil remediation.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.1-6
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• 2015

The objectives of this study were to calculate the radius of influence (ROI) of well for an air-sparging (AS)/soil vapor extraction (SVE) system and to evaluate the applicability of the system applied for the remediation of the petroleum contaminated rail site. For air permeability test, three monitoring wells were installed at a location of 1.3 m, 2.3 m, 3.0 m from the extraction well. And the pressure of each monitoring well was measured by extracting air from the extraction well with the pressure and flow of $(-)2,600mmH_2O$ and $1.58m^3/min$. The ROI for an extraction well was calculated as 4.31 m. Air was injected into the injection well with the pressure and flow of $3,500mmH_2O$ and $0.6m^3/min$ to estimate the radius of influence for oxygen transfer. Oxygen concentrations of air from three monitoring wells were measured. The ROI of an injection well for oxygen transfer was calculated as 3.46 m. The 28 extraction wells and 19 injection wells were installed according to the ROI calculated. The AS/SVE system was operated eight hours a day for five months. The rail site was contaminated with the petroleum and concentrations of benzene, toluene, and xylene were over the 'Worrisome Standard' of the 'Soil Environment Conservation Act'. The contaminated area was estimated as $732m^2$ and contaminants were dispersed up to (-)3 m from the ground. During the operation period, soil samples were collected from 5 points and analyzed periodically. With the AS/SVE system operation, concentrations of benzene, toluene, and xylene were decreased from 7.5 mg/kg to 2.0 mg/kg, from 32.0 mg/kg to 23.0 mg/kg, from 35.5 mg/kg to 23.0 mg/kg, respectively. The combined AS/SVE system applied to the rail site contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs) exhibited a high applicability. But the concentration of contaminants in soil were fluctuated due to the heterogeneous of soil condition. Also the effect of the remediation mechanisms was not clearly identified.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.14 no.6
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• pp.65-70
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• 2009

Reduction of groundwater surface tension prior to air sparging (SEAS, surfactant-enhanced air sparging) was known to increase air saturation in the aquifer under influence, possibly enhancing the removal rates of volatile contaminants. Although SEAS was known to be efficient for increasing air saturation, little information is available for different hydrogeological settings including soil particle sizes and the depth of aquifer. We investigated water saturations in the sparging influence zone during SEAS using one-dimensional column packed with sands of different particle sizes and different aquifer depths. An anionic surfactant was used to suppress the surface tension of water. Two different sands were used; the air entry pressures of the sands were measured to be $15.0\;cmH_2O$, and $36.3\;cmH_2O$, respectively. No significant difference was observed in the water saturation-surface tension relationship for sands with different particle sizes. As the surface tension decreased, the water saturation decreased to a lowest point and then it increased with further decrease in the surface tension. Both sands reached their lowest water saturations when the surface tension was set approximately at 42 dyne/cm. SEAS was conducted at three different aquifer depths; 41 cm, 81 cm, and 160 cm. Water saturation-surface tension relationship was consistent regardless of the aquifer depth. The size of sparging influence zone during SEAS, measured using two-dimensional model, was found to be similar to the changes in air saturation, measured using one-dimensional model. Considering diverse hydrogeological settings where SEAS to be applied, the results here may provide useful information for designing SEAS process.