The Use of Haz-Flote to Efficiently Remove Mercury from Contaminated Materials

Brown, Terry

University Of Wyoming Research Corporation

关键词: Removal;    Mining;    Us Superfund;    Us Dod;    Underground Storage;   

DOI  :  10.2172/993809
RP-ID  :  None
RP-ID  :  FC26-98FT40323
RP-ID  :  993809

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

There are thousands of known contaminated sites in the United Stated, including Superfund sites (1500 to 2100 sites), RCRA corrective action sites (1500 to 3500 sites), underground storage tanks (295,000 sites), U.S. Department of Defense sites (7300 sites), U.S. Department of Energy sites (4,000 sites), mining refuse piles, and numerous other hazardous metals and organic contamination sites. Only a small percentage of these sites has been cleaned up. The development of innovative technologies to handle the various clean-up problems on a national and international scale is commonplace. Many innovative technologies have been developed that can be used to effectively remediate contaminated materials. Unfortunately, many of these technologies are only effective for materials coarser than approximately 200 mesh. In addition, these technologies usually require considerable investment in equipment, and the clean-up costs of soil material are relatively high - in excess of $100 to $500 per yd{sup 3}. These costs result from the elaborate nature of the processes, the costs for power, and the chemical cost. The fine materials are disposed of or treated at considerable costs. As a result, the costs often associated with amelioration of contaminated sites are high. Western Research institute is in the process of developing an innovative soil washing technology that addresses the removal of contaminants from the fine size-fraction materials located at many of the contaminated sites. This technology has numerous advantages over the other ex-situ soil washing techniques. It requires a low capital investment, low operating costs and results in high levels of re-emplacement of the cleaned material on site. The process has the capability to clean the fine fraction (<200 mesh) of the soil resulting in a replacement of 95+% of the material back on-side, reducing the costs of disposal. The Haz-Flote{trademark} technology would expand the application of soil washing technology to heavy soils (clay-type should) to which current soil washing practices are not applied. WRI is not aware of any other soil washing technologies that demonstrate this ability at the expected cost on a per ton basis. The market for this technology is considered excellent for Superfund and other inorganic contaminated sites.