I-Corps: Electromagnetically-Induced Groundwater Remediation

已经开发了几种技术来补救或加强土壤和地下水的自然补救。然而，任何修复技术都应该考虑修复过程中涉及的几种机制之间的复杂相互作用，如气流、污染物流动、渗漏、微生物活动、环境副作用和成本。值得注意的是，这些现有方法中的大多数都是破坏性的、成本高昂的，或者对环境有副作用。例如，使用直流电和交流电(DC/AC)需要破坏性和昂贵的电极安装。此外，土壤的电阻率在DC/AC的响应下会随着时间的推移而增加，导致电极腐蚀、效率损失、温度超过100oC时不受欢迎的加热，以及在DC使用的情况下，pH变化，所有这些都可能危及负责生物修复的土壤微生物群落的健康。该团队已经开发出一种利用电磁波远程补救或去除污染物的替代方案。建议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、水文地质学、地球物理、石油开采，甚至地震工程。这项技术能让受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。开发这种非破坏性、环境安全、通用和成本效益高的补救技术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。由于其多功能性，这项技术具有非常高的成本效益和非破坏性，因为电磁波可以使用相控阵天线从地面发射；电磁辐射模式可以量身定做，以控制污染物或将污染物移动到提取井，增强气流并增强对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.