I-Corps: Electromagnetically-Induced Groundwater Remediation

已经开发了几种技术来修复或加强土壤和地下水的自然修复。然而，任何修复技术都应考虑到修复过程中涉及的气流、污染物流动、渗漏、微生物活动、环境副作用和成本等多种机制之间复杂的相互作用。重要的是要注意，这些现有的方法大多是破坏性的，昂贵的，或有环境副作用。例如，使用直流和交流电流（DC/AC）需要破坏性和昂贵的电极安装。此外，随着时间的推移，土壤的电阻率会随着直流/交流而增加，导致电极腐蚀、效率损失、温度超过100℃时的不良加热，以及在使用直流的情况下，pH值的改变，所有这些都会损害负责生物修复的土壤微生物群落的健康。该团队开发了一种替代方案，利用电磁波远程修复或去除污染物。所提出的技术可以帮助处理多相流的工业领域，例如土壤/地下水修复，水文地质，地球物理，石油开采，甚至地震工程。这项技术能使污染场地的所有者受益吗？从私人土地所有者到州/联邦机构和监管机构，如环境保护局。这种无损的、环境安全的、多用途的、成本有效的修复技术的发展可以产生各种社会影响，如改善人类健康、经济效益和环境恢复。由于其通用性，该技术可以非常经济高效且无损，因为电磁波可以使用相控阵天线从地面发射；EM辐射模式可以定制，以容纳或移动污染物到萃取井中，增强气流，增强负责生物修复的好氧微生物的氧气输送，并改善污染物？从土壤基质中解吸。

Several technologies have been developed to remediate or enhance the natural remediation of soil and groundwater. Yet, any remediation technology should consider the complex interactions among several mechanisms involved in remediation such as airflow, contaminant flow, seepage, microbial activities, environmental side effects, and cost. It is important to note that most of these existing methods are destructive, costly, or have environmental side effects. For example, using direct and alternating electric currents (DC/AC) need destructive and costly electrode installation. In addition, the soil's electric resistivity increases over time in response to DC/AC, leading to electrode corrosion, efficiency loss, undesirable heating with temperatures over 100oC, and, in the case of DC usage, pH alteration, all of which can compromise the health of soil microbial communities responsible for bioremediation. This team has developed an alternative that leverages electromagnetic (EM) waves to remotely remediate or remove contaminants. The proposed technology can help industrial fields that deal with multiphase flow, e.g., soil/groundwater remediation, hydrogeology, geophysics, oil recovery, and even earthquake engineering. The technology can benefit owners of contaminated sites ? from private land owners to state / federal agencies and regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Development of such nondestructive, environmentally safe, versatile, and cost effective remediation technology can have various societal impacts such as human-health improvement, economic benefits, and environmental restoration. This technology can be very cost-effective and nondestructive due to its versatility, because EM waves can be launched using phased-array antennae from above ground; EM radiation patterns can be tailored to contain or move contaminants to extraction wells, enhance airflow and enhance the oxygen delivery to aerobic microbes responsible for bioremediation, and improve contaminants? desorption from the soil matrix.