Project Details:
Soils contaminated with explosives – Environmental risk assessment and evaluation of state-of-the-art treatment processes
| Project No.: | 2007-026-2-600 |
| Start date: | 2008-05-01 |
| End date: | 2011-05-25 |
| Division: | Chemistry and the Environment Division |
To collect and review all published data on explosives contamination of soils.
To provide a comprehensive environmental and human health risk assessment on soils contaminated with explosives (bioavailability, degradation pathways etc) .
To evaluate and compare all the current treatment processes and determine the optimum treatment scheme, based on factors such as efficiency, cost, duration of treatment and others.
Explosives-contaminated soil and groundwater at manufacturing and packaging sites pose serious environmental risk. Unstandardized waste disposal procedures and destruction of out-of-date munitions have extended the problem. Due to their stability and mobility in the soil, explosives and their degradation products can also leach to the groundwater. Trinitrotoluene (TNT), 1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-hexahydrotriazine (RDX), octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetrazocine (HMX) are the main explosives found in contaminated soils.
There are several different remediation technologies that deal with soil contaminated with explosives. All come under the following broad categories: biological methods, chemical methods, physical methods and thermal methods. Each class of processes has its advantages and disadvantages.
The scope of this study is to provide a step-by-step human health and environmental risk assessment and a critical evaluation of all the current treatment processes. Each part will serve as a guide for scientists and decision-makers world-wide to determine the optimum treatment scheme for their individual case of explosives-contaminated soil, according to the local and national laws and other requirements (levels of contamination, time and funds available for remediation and others).
Dec 2010 - A Technical Report Soils contaminated with explosives – Environmental fate and evaluation of state-of-the-art remediation processes", has been accepted for publication in PAC.
May 2011 - published in Pure Appl. Chem., 2011, Vol. 83, No. 7, pp. 1407-1484; doi:10.1351/PAC-REP-10-01-05, published online 2011-05-07
project completed
Last update: 24 June 2011