Bioventing has the potential to be an important technology for the remediation of hydrocarbon contamination at the micro-scale level. However, implementation of bioventing faces some challenges at the field scale. One major challenge is a scale dependent phenomenon that influences the bioventing process. Accordingly, research was undertaken to determine the hydrocarbon degradation rates at the meso-scale level and compare the results to a previously completed micro-scale study. Three types of soils classified as loamy sand, silt loam and sandy loam were tested in meso-scale bioventing reactors that hold 4 kg of contaminated soil. Completed results over a thirty-day period showed a two-stage degradation process as compared to the first-order degradation rate determined in the micro-scale study. For the first stage (0 to 8 d), the degradation rate for Delhi, Elora and Mixed soils were 0.56 d~(-1), 0.47 d~(-1), and 0.44 d~(-1) respectively. Similarly, results for stage-2 (8-30 d) were at 0.12 d~(-1) for Delhi, 0.09 d~(-1) for Mixed, and 0.074 d~(-1) for Elora. Comparison of degradation rates suggests scale-up factor varying from 2 to 9 with the meso-scale reactors having a larger degradation rate.
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