Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A& M University, College Station, TX, 77843-3123, USA.
Chevron Technical Center, Richmond, CA, USA.
Environ Pollut. 2024 Feb 1;342:122893. doi: 10.1016/j.envpol.2023.122893. Epub 2023 Nov 10.
Petroleum-impacted soils pose several hazards and require fast, effective, and versatile remediation techniques. Electron beam irradiation provides a novel means of heating soil and inducing non-equilibrium chemical reactions and has previously been applied to environmental remediation. In this work a scalable process for remediation of petroleum-impacted soils using a 100 kW, 3 MeV industrial electron beam is investigated. The process involves conveying impacted soil through a beam at a controllable rate to achieve a desired dose of approximately 1000 kGy. Reductions to less than 1% Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) content from an initial TPH of 3.3% were demonstrated for doses of 710-1370 kGy. These reductions were achieved in in conditions equivalent to 4 m per hour, demonstrating the applicability of this technique to remediation sites. TPH reduction appeared to be temperature-dependent but not heavily dependent on dose rate, with reductions of 96% achieved for a dose of 1370 kGy and peak temperature of 540 °C. The performance of the process at high dose rates suggests that it can be incorporated into remediation of sites for which a high rate of material processing is required with a relatively small device footprint.
受石油污染的土壤存在多种危害，需要快速、有效且多功能的修复技术。电子束辐照为加热土壤和诱导非平衡化学反应提供了一种新方法，此前已应用于环境修复。在这项工作中，研究了使用 100kW、3MeV 工业电子束修复受石油污染土壤的可扩展工艺。该工艺涉及以可控速率输送受污染的土壤通过光束，以达到约 1000kGy 的所需剂量。初始总石油烃（TPH）含量为 3.3%的土壤，经 710-1370kGy 剂量处理后，TPH 含量降低至低于 1%。在等效于每小时 4 米的条件下实现了这些减少，证明了该技术在修复现场的适用性。TPH 的减少似乎与温度有关，但与剂量率的关系不大，在 1370kGy 剂量和 540°C 的峰值温度下，减少了 96%。该工艺在高剂量率下的性能表明，它可以与需要高材料处理速率的场地修复相结合，而设备占地面积相对较小。
