Americas
Europe
Français
Deutsch
Italiano
EspañolBy Bryan Vigue, Vice President of Marketing, REGENESIS
On May 21-25th, REGENESIS actively sponsored and took part in the highly anticipated Eighth International Conference on Remediation of Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compound, held in Monterey, California and organized by Battelle.
[/caption]On the first full-day of the Conference, REGENESIS provided a unique opportunity for many of the registrants to attend a key luncheon program entitled “Technologies for Tomorrow” which focused on several of the Company’s new and developing groundwater remediation and vapor intrusion mitigation technologies. At the start of the luncheon, REGENESIS’ President and CEO, Scott Wilson walked a standing-room-only crowd of remediation practitioners through a timeline illustrating the milestone developments of the Company. Beginning in 1994 Mr. Wilson moved through a range of significant technology developments over the years and concluded with the announcement of three new technologies: PetroCleanze™, Retro-Coat™ and Plume Stop™. At that point, Mr. Wilson turned the presentation over to Dr. Ben Mork, the Director of Research and Development at REGENESIS.
PetroCleanze™
Dr. Mork proceeded through the technical side of the presentation starting with PetroCleanze™, a technology released in late 2011 which actively liberates and oxidizes sorbed-phase or bound hydrocarbon trapped in soil through advanced chemical oxidation and surfactant-forming chemistry. It was noted that a key step in the use and effectiveness of PetroCleanze is the post-application physical/mechanical extraction of the now readily available hydrocarbon. Dr. Mork also added that, “The desorptive capacity of PetroCleanze is also highly beneficial to increasing the efficiency of existing pump & treat systems which have managed to reduce contaminant concentrations but are unable to extract trapped hydrocarbon. By targeting the bound mass with PetroCleanze and increasing the dissolved-phase concentrations, costly pump and treat systems can capture increased yields of contaminants and justify their expense.” PetroCleanze is available as a commercial product in the U.S. and International Markets and is currently being used on a range of groundwater remediation project sites.
Retro-Coat™
Secondly, Dr. Mork discussed a new vapor intrusion mitigation solution currently available from Land Science Technologies (LST), a division of REGENESIS. This new technology, Retro-Coat™, is part of the vapor intrusion solutions offerings from LST which include the widely-used and uniquely chemically resistant vapor intrusion barrier Geo-Seal®. Retro-Coat is a new, chemical resistant liquid based coating specifically engineered to be applied onto the concrete slab of an existing structure to mitigate vapor intrusion from chlorinated solvents and/or petroleum hydrocarbons. Dr. Mork went into detail regarding the rigorous research and development of this technology including new, long-term chemical resistance and testing methodologies developed by LST to document the overall effectiveness of the Retro-Coat material. Retro-Coat is a commercially available product and has been used on several vapor intrusion project sites to-date. More technical information will be available regarding the details of Retro-Coat in a forthcoming white paper due out this summer.
Plume Stop™
Finally, Dr. Mork introduced a completely new groundwater remediation technology under development at REGENESIS. He started the presentation by framing the need for this technology by stating that “Both REGENESIS and remediation professionals are seeking better ways to manage groundwater contaminant flux, or the amount of contaminant transported versus time, as this factor affects the size of the plume and ultimately drives risk.” This set the stage for a thought provoking presentation on Plume Stop™, a new technology currently in the research and development stage at REGENESIS. With the name clearly inferring its potential capabilities, Dr. Mork went on to explain that “The goal of this technology research program is to effectively capture organic contaminants from groundwater and to do it with non-toxic ingredients, a fast reaction time, significant material longevity and minimal affects to groundwater flow rates.” The current technical concept of Plume Stop was described as a technology that consists of soluble materials that can be injected throughout a groundwater plume. Upon emplacement into the aquifer, Plume Stop is designed to undergo unique chemical cross-linking processes that form a porous organic network or matrix on the soil surface with the ability to capture contaminants but still allow water to pass through it. It is expected that once Plume Stop has immobilized contaminants, biological degradation processes will proceed ultimately degrading the contaminants into harmless end products. When addressing current Plume Stop performance, Dr. Mork commented, “So far, the outlook for Plume Stop is promising with early laboratory and in-field beta-testing showing dissolved groundwater contaminant concentration reductions of 50%-90% over relatively short time periods.” Overall, the Plume Stop technology introduction offered much of what many groundwater remediation professionals and their clients were looking for including its ability to rapidly reduce groundwater concentrations, sequester contaminants in-place, reduce mass flux including contaminant back-diffusion, and allow for risk-based closures.
The reaction from audience to these technical advances put forth by REGENESIS set the tone for a very positive and exciting week of technical exchange on the topics related to soil and groundwater remediation as well as vapor intrusion mitigation.
The Battelle Chlorinated and Recalcitrant Compounds Conference held in Monterey, California is by far one of the largest gatherings of groundwater remediation experts of the year with more than 1,500 scientists, engineers, regulators, and other environmental professionals in attendance representing multi-national environmental consulting firms, universities, government site management and regulatory agencies, and manufacturing firms from around the world. The close to a week-long technical symposium features 67 individual sessions comprised of approximately 900 platform and poster presentations which cover the ever-broadening field of existing or new technologies/approaches to address the challenge of characterization, treatment, and monitoring of chlorinated and other recalcitrant compounds. For more information or a copy of the Conference proceedings visit www.battelle.org/chlorcon/.
