Leaking of petroleum products from storage tanks is a commonly found cause of soil contamination. Among those petroleum products, diesel-oil contaminated soils are more difficult to treat compared to gasoline (a more volatile petroleum product). With the growing interest in environmental remediation, various approaches have been proposed for treating petroleum-hydrocarbon (PH) contaminated sites. Given that it is often not possible to remove the released oil or remediate the site completely within a short period of time, using the in situ remedial technology, soil excavation followed by more cost-effective technology should be applied to accelerate the efficiency of site cleanup. In the first-part of this study, laboratory degradation experiments were conducted to determine the optimal operational conditions to effectively and economically bioremediate diesel-fuel contaminated soils. In the second part of this study, a combined full-scale landfarming and biopile system was operated to cleanup diesel fuel-contaminated soils. In the laboratory study, except of frequent soil tilling for air replacement, different additives were added in the laboratory bioreactors to enhance the total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) removal efficiency. The additives included nutrients, TPH-degrading bacteria, activated sludge, fern chips, and kitchen waste composts. PH-degrading bacteria were isolated from PH-contaminated soils and activated sludge was collected from a wastewater treatment plant containing PH in the influent. PH-degrading bacteria and sludge were added to increase the microbial population and diversity. Fern chips and kitchen waste composts were added to increase the soil permeability. Results indicate that the bioreactor with kitchen waste compost addition had the highest TPH removal rate. The observed TPH-removal ratios for the compost, activated sludge, PH-degrading bacteria, fern chips, nutrients, TPH-degrading bacteria addition, and control (with HgCl2 addition) groups were 80.5%, 78.6%, 77.4%, 75.1%, 73.3%, 66.1%, and 1.6% respectively. In the field study, activated sludge was selected as the additive from the engineering point of view. With the addition of activated sludge, an increase of 20% was observed for TPH removal ratio. Results from the denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) tests show that the detected PH-degrading bacteria in the activated sludge included the following: Pseudomonas sp., Pseudoxanthomonas sp., Rhodocyclaceae bacterium, Variovorax sp., Acidovorax sp., Leptothrix sp., Alcaligenaceae bacterium, and Burkholderia sp. Some of these bacteria became dominant species in the field after a long-term operation, which was beneficial to the soil bioremediation. Results indicate that the in situ bioremediation has the potential to be developed into an environmentally and economically acceptable remediation technology.

Sediments are transported by the flowing water then build up on the bottom of water bodies as the materials settle. Contaminated sediments are composed of soils, sand, organic matters, and other minerals that accumulate on the bottom of water bodies and contain toxic or hazardous materials at levels that may adversely affect human health or the environment. The contaminated deposits can be decomposed and released into liquid phase by dramatic changes on environmental conditions. However, the contaminated deposits have a potential of causing changes of nature water system, especially for aquatic livings. Sediments contaminated by light non-aqueous-phase liquids (e.g., fuel oil) and heavy metal are prevalent and of a great concern. The major advantage of Fenton-like oxidation process is that the reagent components are safe to handle and environmentally benign. However, protective enclosure of contaminants with aged sediment matrices and the hydrophobic nature of contaminants limit their accessibility to treatment agents; these obstacles prevent treatment efforts from widespread successes. The interactions of hydrophobic contaminants with the soil matrix in various ways often limit contaminant availability for remediation. In order to overcome this limitation and increase contact, a novel extraction technique that utilized oxidation agent and elevated pressure in consecutive cycles of compression and decompression was developed and applied to soil slurry in the presence of chelating or oxidation agent. The objective of this study was to design a pressure-cycling system that integrates the oxidation agent. This system has the following advantages over traditional chemical treatment: (1) increased process speed, (2) lower operating costs, and (3) the transition metal elements can catalyze the oxidized pollutants. In this study, fuel oil was selected as the target compounds to evaluate the effectiveness of pressure-cycling system on the treatment of fuel oil contaminated sediment. The oxidizing agent used in this study was H2O2. The operating parameters included system pressure, pressure cycles, oxidizing agent concentration, and reaction time. Results show that approximately 38% of TPH was removed after 120 min of reaction with Fenton-like oxidation without pressurization. However, the removal efficiency increased to 47% under the pressure of 10 bar. Thus, pressure-assisted oxidation system is able to accelerate the oxidation reaction, and cause the remove the removal of TPH more effectively. To enhance TPH removal efficiency effectively and reduce the oxidant amount used, water flushing combined with pressure-assisted system as a pretreatment process was applied. Results show that TPH removal efficiency can be significantly enhanced and the amount of oxidant usage can be reduced when the pressurized water flushing was applied before the oxidation process.

Diesel #2 is used to heat nearly 400,000 dwellings in Virginia. Home heating oil released from leaking underground tanks located adjacent to homes and residing in unsaturated soil adjacent to houses poses a potentially serious health risk. Specifically, the migration of hazardous vapors into buildings, known as vapor intrusion, can negatively impact indoor air quality in homes and public buildings (USEPA 2015). In this look-back study, we assessed the potential for petroleum vapor intrusion by sampling soil vapor at 25 previously remediated spill sites. Residual contaminants, in particular total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) and naphthalene, were detected in approximately 1/3 of the samples. Concentration levels were correlated to site variables (building type, remediation time, physiographic region) including previous abatement measures. Spill category as assigned by the remediation contractor was investigated in conjunction with these three site variables. Remediation time was the most promising predictive site variable, with visible trends downward in DEQ Category 2 sites with increased remediation time. Higher contaminant concentrations were found near basement-style dwellings, which we hypothesize is due to the wall of the basement blocking horizontal migration of contaminants and the flow of oxygen to the release source zone. We found that many sites exceeded the sub-slab risk target threshold in naphthalene concentration, which has negative implications on previous abatement strategy efficacy. / Master of Science