I-Corps: Electromagnetically-Induced Groundwater Remediation

已经开发了若干技术来补救或加强土壤和地下水的自然补救。然而，任何补救技术都应该考虑补救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。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，土壤的电阻率随着时间的推移而增加，以响应DC/AC，导致电极腐蚀，效率损失，温度超过100 ° C的不希望的加热，以及在DC使用的情况下，pH值改变，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。 该团队开发了一种替代方案，利用电磁（EM）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、水文地质学、地球物理学、石油回收，甚至地震工程。这项技术可以使受污染场地的所有者受益？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。这种非破坏性的，环境安全的，多功能的，具有成本效益的补救技术的发展可以有各种社会影响，如人类健康的改善，经济效益和环境恢复。这项技术可以是非常具有成本效益和非破坏性的，由于其多功能性，因为电磁波可以发射使用相控阵天线从地面上，电磁辐射模式可以定制包含或移动污染物提取威尔斯，提高气流和氧气输送到好氧微生物负责生物修复，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.