Stabilization of mercury contaminated sediments

汞是一种通过自然和人为活动释放到环境中的剧毒金属。在许多地点，正在努力修复汞含量升高的土壤和沉积物，主要是为了尽量减少生态系统的破坏和保护渔业。与此类补救工作相关的费用可能非常高，因此希望开发低成本的方法来处理汞污染的土壤和沉积物。本项目重点描述汞污染沉积物的处理方案。将进行实验，以评估利用从过去工业活动污染的地点获得的沉积物的各种补救办法。受污染的沉积物将在移地沉积之前稳定，以尽量减少汞对土壤和地下水的浸出。该研究将特别强调通过使用旨在评估加速风化条件下反应的实验来描述汞的长期浸出。实验结果有望通过潜在的成本节约使工业受益。如果适用于场地规模，汞通量将减少，从而改善环境，并可能减少接触。

Mercury is a highly toxic metal released to the environment through natural and anthropogenic activities. At many sites, efforts are underway to remediate soils and sediments with elevated mercury, primarily to minimize ecosytem damage and to protect fisheries. The costs associated with such remediation efforts can be exceedingly high, therefore there is a desire to develop low cost methods to treat mercury contaminated soils and sediment. This project focuses on delineation of treatment options for mercury contaminated sediments. Experiments will be conducted to assess various remediation approaches using sediments obtained from a site contaminated through past industrial activities. The contaminated sediments will be stabilized prior to ex situ deposition to minimize Hg leaching to soil and groundwater. Particular emphasis of the study will be placed on delineation of long-term leaching of Hg through the use of experiments which are designed to assess reactions under accelerated weathering conditions. The results of the experiments are expected to benefit industry through potential cost savings. If applied to the site scale, Hg fluxes will be reduced, leading to environmental improvements, and potentially reductions in exposure.