Design and use of a mobile air treatment exhaust system for air pollution control during the removal of breached drums of hazardous waste at Drum Burial Area V, Panoche Landfill, Solano County, California

摘要

The Panoche Facility is a hazardous waste landfill being remediated. Drum Burial Area V (DBA V) is a 5-acre section of the landfill that was active from 1977 to 1981 (IT [1])and received wastes in the following chemical categories: corrosive acids and caustics, flammable and combustible, water reactive, strong oxidizers and reducing agents, and polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-contaminated oils. (IT [1]) During the removal activity, the drum emissions were collected and treated before being released to the atmosphere. The challenge of this removal activity was to design a system that could collect volatile organic compounds (VOC) vapors from an open trench on a windy hillside.rnIt was assumed that DBA V contained approximately 4,000 buried drums of waste and containers of unknown condition (intact versus breached). (IT [1]) It was assumed that the VOC emission concentration was 1,000 ppm, the carbon would be used at a rate of 12,500 pounds (lbs) per month; forty 55-gallon drums would be handled per day; and the mass of carbon (C) consumption to mass of VOC emissions would be 0.16 lb C/lb VOC. (IT [1]) Pursuant to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) permit conditions, the air treatment system had a collection hood with a minimum 200 feet per minute face velocity, a dust collector placed upstream of the carbon beds to handle fugitive landfill dust, two bins of GAC in series, and an industrial exhaust fan. (IT [1])rnThe air treatment system performance exceeded the design requirements. Fifty drums are currently being removed per day and the air emission VOC concentration was measured to be between 0 to 50 ppm; with an occasional spike. The removal activity is 80 percent complete, and less than 12,500 lbs of carbon was used. Approximately 90 percent of the drums were breached and nearly empty, which explains the low VOC emissions concentration.