NCD980602163_19920301_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_US-EPA A Citizen's Guide to Innovative Treatment Technologies-OCR

Office of United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
Solid Waste and
Emergency Response
EPA/542/F-92/001
March 1992
&EPA A Citizen's Guide To
Innovative Treatment
Technologies
For Contaminated Soils, Sludges, Sediments and Debris
Technology Innovation Office Technology Fact Sheet
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What Are Innovative
Treatment Technologies?
Treatment technologies are processes
applied to the treatment of hazardous
waste or contaminated materials such as
soils, sludges, sediments and debris to
permanently alter their condition
through chemical, biological, or
physical means. Technologies that have
been tested, selected or used for
treatment of hazardous waste or
contaminated materials but lack well-
documented cost and performance data
under a variety of operating conditions
are called innovative treatment
technologies.
Treatment technologies are able to alter,
by destroying or changing,
contaminated materials so they are less
hazardous or are no longer hazardous.
This may be done by reducing the
amount of contaminated material, by
recovering or removing a component
that gives the material its hazardous
properties or by immobilizing the
waste.
Why Use An Innovative
Technology?
Treatment of contaminated sludges and
soils is a new field of technology that
has developed and grown with the
advent of legislation for contaminated
waste site clean-up in the past ten years.
Initially, the only way to eliminate a
hazardous waste from a particular
location was to move it somewhere else,
or place a cap on top, using land
disposal as the solution to the problem.
New landfill designs for disposal of
contaminated material were required to
meet new, stringent criteria under the
Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act, which provides protection to the
environment. With an increasing
amount of clean-up underway, a new
demand for more permanent and less
costly solutions for contaminated
materials developed. In response,
scientists and engineers began to
develop and use more treatment
technologies. Figure 1, on page 2,
provides an illustration of the evolution
of their thinking about how
contaminated materials should be
treated.
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Figura 1
Progress In The Methods For Handling Hazardous Wastes
Land Disposal
Waste Generated
As knowledge about the clean-up of contaminated sites
expands, scientists and engineers will be able to devise
approaches for more effective, permanent clean-ups. ·
Because the innovative treatment technologies that are being
used to treat hazardous waste lack a long history of full-
scale use, they do not have the extensive documentation
necessary to make innovative treatment technologies a
standard in the engineering/scientific community. Although
innovative treatment technologies lack extensive
documentation, many of these technologies have been used
successfully at contaminated sites in the U.S., Canada and
Europe. Some of the technologies were developed in
response to the hazardous waste problem, others have been
adapted from other industrial uses.
As shown in Figure 2, below, developing and perfecting
treatment technologies is an on-going process. It begins
with a concept -an idea of how to treat a particular
hazardous waste. The concept usually undergoes a research
and evaluation process to prove it is feasible. If the concept
is proven, often the next step is to undergo bench-scale
testing. During bench-scale testing a small-scale version of
the technology is built and tested in a laboratory. During
this testing it would be considered an emerging technology.
If the technology is successful during the bench-scale
testing, it is then demonstrated at small-scale levels at field
sites. If successful under the parameters of small-scale field
demonstrations, the technology will often be chosen for
remediation and used full-scale at contaminated waste sites.
The technology is continuously being applied at different
sites and evaluated so that it can constantly be refined.
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It is only after a technology has been used at many sites
with varying conditions and the results fully documented,
that it achieves the status of an established technology.
Therefore, the majority of technologies in use today are
classified as innovative.
What Types of Treatment Technologies
Are In Use?
Established technologies such as incineration and
solidification/stabilization have been the most widely used
at Superfund sites. By 1990, however, 40 percent of the
treatment technologies selected and being used to treat soils,
sediments, sludges and debris were innovative treatment
technologies. The number of innovative treatment
technologies being used increases every year.
Table I on page 3 describes some of the most frequently
used innovative treatment technologies.
Figure 2
Developing Treatment Technologies
Concept Emerging Innovative Established -1111,
• Idea Bench-Scale Testing Fleld Chosen for Limited Common Full-Scale II'
• Research and Demonstration Remediation Full-Scale Use
Education Use
2
Table 1
Descriptions of Some Innovative Treatment Technologies
Bloremedlatlon: uses microorganisms, such as bacteria,
to break down organic contaminants into harmless
substances.
Solvent Extraction: separates hazardous organic
contaminants from oily-type wastes, soils, sludges, and
sediments, reducing the volume of hazardous waste that
must be treated.
In Situ Soll Flushing: an in situ (in place) process that
floods contaminated soils in the subsurface with a washing
solution to flush out the contaminants.
Soll Washing: uses water or a washing solution and
mechanical processes to scrub excavated soils and
remove hazardous contaminants.
How Is A Treatment Technology Selected
For A Site?
The selection of a treatment technology for a Superfund site
follows detailed site studies where the site conditions and
contaminants are identified and assessed. This important
information is the basis for analyzing possible remedies for
the site problems based on evaluation criteria EPA
considers. Finally, EPA selects a chosen remedy for the site
based on the criteria and sets the remedy and clean-up
standards.
A treatability study is often conducted to assess a treatment
technology's potential for success. It is conducted either
when the treatment technology is being considered or after
selection of the remedy during remedial design, in order to
compile additional performance information.
There are three kinds of treatability studies. The type
chosen depends on the information available about the site
and technology and the nature of information that is needed
to assess the use of the technology at the site. The quickest,
least expensive treatability study is the laboratory
screening. It is typically done in a laboratory using small
equipment such as beakers. It takes just a matter of days
and generally costs from $10,000 to $50,000. It can indicate
whether a technology has the potential to meet the clean-up
standards. Successful laboratory screening may lead to
more sophisticated treatability studies.
Another type of treatability study is the bench-scale study
which can provide greater performance and cost data than
laboratory screening. Although sometimes performed in a
laboratory setting, it is on a larger scale than laboratory
screening. Typically costs run between $50,000 and
$250,000 and the study is intended to determine if clean-up
goals can be met by the technology.
3
Thermal Desorption: heats soil at relatively low tempera-
tures to vaporize contaminants with low boiling points.
Vaporized contaminants are then captured and removed for
further treatment or destruction.
Glycolate Dehalogenatlon: uses a chemical reagent (a
substance used to react with and change another sub-
stance) to change the structure of certain contaminants,
thereby rendering them less hazardous.
Air Sparglng: injects air into the saturated zone (that part
of subsurface that is soaked with groundwater) to remove
hazardous contaminants.
Pilot-scale treatability studies are usually conducted in the
field and require the installation of the treatment technology.
They are used to provide performance, cost and design
objectives for the treatment technology, not to conduct the
clean up. Due to the cost of this type of study, generally
more than $250,000, it is used almost exclusively to fine-
tune the design criteria following other treatability studies.
0QeS Ari Innovative Treatment Technology
>Pose A Greater Health Risk?
Ncl,Jonovatlve treatment technologies must
meeftne same clean-up levels Imposed on
. astabllshedtechnologles.
What Happens If A Technology Does
Not Work?
In spite of the best engineering design there is always a
possibility that a treatment technology, established or
innovative, may not work once it is in full-scale operation.
This is often because of unknown site conditions that could
not be anticipated under the conditions of the smaller-scale
studies done to support the technology's design. Natural
conditions are far more complex than laboratory conditions.
If a technology does not work initially, engineers and
scientists can work with the technology to adapt its design
and, with time, correct the problems. In some rare cases the
technology may not be able to be used and an alternate
remedy may have to be designed and installed.
Hazardous waste clean-up is in its infancy. Experience with
and increasing use of innovative treatment technologies will
further the development of better and more efficient ways to
clean up the environment.
Where Are Innovative Treatment
Technologies Being Selected?
A number of the technologies that EPA has labeled
"innovative" are being used by industry for containing and
treating the hazardous wastes that they are currently
producing. Innovative technologies are also being selected
and used under many Federal and State clean-up programs,
including those for leaking underground tanks (primarily
petroleum), operating industries' past disposal areas under
the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, and at
contaminated sites under Superfund. As more sites are
documented with their cost and performance data,
innovative treatment technologies will be increasingly
recognized for their effectiveness.
Why Is EPA Encouraging The Use Of
Innovative Treatment Technologies?
The Environmental Protection Agency is encouraging its
scientists and engineers, as well as other agencies and
industries involved in selecting treatments, to make
innovative treatment technologies a priority consideration.
EPA believes that innovative treatment technologies should
be routinely considered as an option in addition to
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established remedies whenever possible. When considering
factors such as increased protection and superior
perfonnance, innovative treatment technologies have the
potential to be more cost effective, provide a better and
more efficient clean-up, and often be more acceptable to
sUJTOW1ding communities than established treatment
technglogies.
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NOTICE: This fact sheet is intended solely as general guidance and information. It is not intended, nor can it be relied upon, to create any rights enforceable by any
party in litigation with the United States. The Agency also reserves the right to change this guidance at any time without public notice.
4 •u.s. Government Printing Office: 1992 -648-080/60001