Enhanced performance monitoring of in situ thermal treatment

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The clean-up of contaminated sites is economically, socially and environmentally beneficial for Canada. Many sites (brownfields) have been contaminated by hazardous liquids such as petroleum fuels, chlorinated solvents, creosote and coal tar. The clean-up of soil and groundwater at these sites can be accelerated through the application of in situ remediation technologies. In situ thermal treatment technologies are a group of aggressive remediation technologies that can be used at a variety of complex sites to meet clean-up goals over short time frames by heating soil and groundwater to water-boiling temperature and extracting the steam and vapourized contaminants. However, the performance of these technologies is difficult to measure while they are in operation due to the high temperature and high cost of operational interruption. The goal of this research is to develop new monitoring techniques and mathematical design tools to improve the monitoring and optimization of these technologies. Data collected during a field-scale thermal remediation application will be used to develop relationships between contaminant removal and readily-measured parameters such as subsurface temperature and gas flow rate at individual extraction wells. Laboratory experiments will be used to investigate the removal of multi-component contaminant mixtures during heating, to assess how chemical signatures of their removal may differ from those generated during the removal of single-component contaminants. Mathematical models will be developed to predict contaminant removal, and will be compared to field and laboratory measurements. This research will be guided by a team of university researchers and industry partners, and will train two Master's students.