Development of an integrated, in-situ remediation technology. Topical report for task No. 9. Part I. TCE degradation using nonbiological methods, September 26, 1994--May 25, 1996

Contamination in low-permeability soils poses a significant technical challenge for in situ remediation efforts. Poor accessibility to the contaminants and difficulty in delivery of treatment reagents have rendered existing in situ treatments such as bioremediation, vapor extraction, pump and treat rather ineffective when applied to low-permeability soils present at many contaminated sites. The technology is an integrated in situ treatment in which established geotechnical methods are used to install degradation zones directly in the contaminated soil and electro-osmosis is used to move the contaminants back and forth through those zones until the treatment is completed. The present Draft Topical Report for Task No. 9 summarizes laboratory investigations into TCE degradation using nonbiological methods. These studies were conducted by the General Electric Company. The report concentrates on zero valent iron as the reducing agent and presents data on TCE and daughter product degradation rates in batch experiments, column studies, and electroosmotic cells. It is shown that zero valent iron effectively degrades TCE in electroosmotic experiments. Daughter product degradation and gas generation are shown to be important factors in designing field scale treatment zones for the Lasagna{trademark} process