Foams for in situ remediation of contaminated soils

摘要

An in-situ technology for the unsaturated zone is eing ddeveloped for the remediaiton of contaminated soil present at various gas-industry sites such as at former Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) sites and at Exploration and Production (E&P) sites.the technolgoy is based on the use of gas-liquid foams to inject cleaning agents into hte ground,thus avoiding the need to excavate ocntainated soil for treatment.the foam-based technology can be used for extraction of contaminants for subsequent treatment at the surface,or for introducing chemcials and nutrients for in-situ chemcial/biological treatment of the soil.the sue of foam helps to attaining better control over the quantity of chemicals injected into hte ground and the movement of these chemicals through the soil,thus preventing additional contamination of any groundwater at the site.Since stable foams require high pressure gradients to propagate through soil.success of this remediation mehtod depends on formulating foams that provide the necessary soil-cleanign characteristics while simultaneously being easy to move through soil.The paper discusses the devleopment of foam assisted remediation from laboratory devleopment to field-scale experiments that are being conducted.