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ROLE OF ZERO VALENT IRON AND ORGANIC SUBSTRATES IN CHLORINATED SOLVENT DEGRADATION: AN EX SITU REMEDIATION CASE STUDY
Stevenson, Alexander, Master's thesis, University of Western Ontario. 84 pp, 2018

Field practice suggests that a combination of biotic and abiotic technologies to treat soil affected by chlorinated solvents positively influences a remediation project's success rate. Using ex situ mixing techniques, two previous remediation programs employed a material containing both zero-valent iron (ZVI) and a dry organic substrate to reduce contaminants abiotically and increase anaerobic bioremediation in soil contaminated with PCE and 1,2-DCE. Subsequent research assessed the contributions made by the dry organic substrate and ZVI to the observed changes in chlorinated solvent concentrations by analyzing field samples collected from the previously remediated sites as well as by conducting bench-scale batch reactor experiments designed to test the individual contributions of ZVI and the organic substrate to dechlorination processes. Lab results suggest the mixture of ZVI and organic substrate does not lead to the concentration decreases observed in the full-scale remediation projects, and that volatilization may be the most prominent contributing process for contaminant removal from soil. Field samples analyzed for microorganisms showed a community shift in the area remediated as well as a decrease in Dehalococcoides population size, thus indicating that soil mixing can be detrimental to microbial dechlorination activity. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/5382/



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