Treatability of Ninth Avenue Superfund Site Groundwater.

摘要

The Ninth Avenue Superfund Site is located in Gary, IN, and has been listed on the US Environmental Protection Agency's National Priorities List since 1973. The site is a 17-acre (68,800-sq m) inactive chemical disposal area within a relatively undeveloped, low-lying area. Past disposal activities resulted in the contamination of the underlying groundwater, predominantly with ketones, benzenes, phenols, and chlorinated aliphatic compounds. Four technologies were evaluated on the bench scale for their ability to remove organic contaminants from a composite of groundwater samples collected from six site observation wells. These technologies were activated sludge (aerobic biotreatment), activated sludge with powdered activated carbon (PAC) addition, air stripping, and activated carbon. The results indicate that activated carbon does not have a high sorptive capacity for the site contaminants. Air stripping did not exhibit a high potential for efficiently removing the contaminants from the composite sample. However, activated sludge indicated potential for removing the site contaminants. The addition of PAC improved contaminant removal. Increased removals of chemical oxygen demand and total organic carbon from the composite sample with increased PAC dose were observed. Activated sludge and PAC/activated carbon were capable of removing all priority pollutants to concentrations at or below detection limits.