• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.38-48
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• 2004

Natural attenuation of petroleum hydrocarbon was investigated at an industrial complex about 45 Km away from Seoul. The three-years monitoring results indicated that the concentrations of DO, nitrate, and sulfate in the contaminated area were significantly lower than the background monitoring groundwater under the non-contaminated area. The results also showed a higher ferrous iron concentration, a lower redox potential, and a higher (neutral) pH in the contaminated groundwater, suggesting that biodegradation of TEX(Toluene, Ethylbenzene, Xylene) is the major on-going process in the contaminated area. Groundwater in the contaminated area is anaerobic, and sulfate reduction is the dominant terminal electron accepting process in the area. The total attenuation rate was about 0.0017∼0.0224day$^{-1}$ and the estimated first-order degradation rate constant(λ) was 0.0008∼0.0106day$^{-1}$ . However, the reduction of TEX concentration in the groundwater was resulted from not only biodegradation but also dilution and reaeration through recharge of uncotaminated surface and groundwater. The natural attenuation was, therefore, found to be an effective, on-going remedial process at the site.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.356-363
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• 2011

The accidental releases of total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) due to oil spills frequently ended up with soil and ground water pollution. TPH may be degraded through physicochemical and biological processes in the environment but with relatively slow rates. In this study an attempt has been made to develop an integrated chemical and biological treatment technology in order to establish an efficient and environment-friendly restoration technology for the TPH contaminated soils. A Fenton-like reaction was employed as a preceding chemical treatment process and a bioaugmentation process utilizing a diesel fuel degrader consortium was subsequently applied as a biological treatment process. An efficient chemical removal of TPH from soils occurred when the surfactant OP-10S (0.05%) and oxidants ($FeSO_4$ 4%, and $H_2O_2$ 5%) were used. Bioaugmentation of the degrader consortium into the soil slurry led to an increase in their population density at least two orders of magnitude, indicating a good survival of the degradative populations in the contaminated soils ($10^8-10^9$ CFU/g slurry). TPH removal efficiencies for the Fenton-treated soils increased by at least 57% when the soils were subjected to bioaugmentation of the degradative consortium. However, relatively lower TPH treatment efficiencies (79-83%) have been observed in the soils treated with Fenton and the degraders as opposed to the control (95%) that was left with no treatment. This appeared to be due to the presence of free radicals and other oxidative products generated during the Fenton treatment which might inhibit their degradation activity. The findings in this study will contribute to development of efficient bioremediation treatment technologies for TPH-contaminated soils and sediments in the environment.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.157-181
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• 2020

Sediments from rivers, lakes and marine ports serve as end points for pollutants discharged into the water, and at the same time serve as sources of pollutants that are continuously released into the water. Until now, the contaminated sediments have been landfilled or dumped at sea. Landfilling, however, was expensive and dumping at sea was completely banned due to the London Convention. Therefore, this study applied contaminated sedimentation soil of 'Royal Palace Livestock Complex' as soil purification method. Soil remediation methods were applied to pretreatment, composting, soil washing, electrokinetics, and thermal desorption by selecting overseas application cases and domestically applicable application technologies. As a result of surveying the site for pollutant characteristics, Disolved Oxigen (DO), Suspended Solid (SS), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Total Nitrogen (TN), and Total Phosphorus (TP) exceeded the discharged water quality standard, and especially SS, COD, TN, and TP exceeded the standard several tens to several hundred times. Soil showed high concentrations of copper and zinc, which promote the growth of pig feed, and cadmium exceeded 1 standard of Soil Environment Conservation Act. In the pretreatment technology, hydrocyclone was used for particle size separation, and the fine soil was separated by more than 80%. Composting was performed on organic and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbon (TPH) contaminated soils. TPH was treated within the standard of concern, and E. coli was analyzed to be high in organic matter, and the fertilizer specification was satisfied by applying the optimum composting conditions at 70℃, but the organic matter content was lower than the fertilizer specification. As a result of continuous washing test, Cd has 5 levels of residual material in fine soil. Cu and Zn were mostly composed of ion exchange properties (stage 1), carbonates (stage 2), and iron / manganese oxides (stage 3), which facilitate easy separation of contamination. As a result of applying acid dissolution and multi-stage washing step by step, hydrochloric acid, 1.0M, 1: 3, 200rpm, 60min was analyzed as the optimal washing factor. Most of the contaminated sediments were found to satisfy the Soil Environmental Conservation Act's standards. Therefore, as a result of the applicability test of this study, soil with high heavy metal contamination was used as aggregate by applying soil cleaning after pre-treatment. It was possible to verify that it was efficient to use organic and oil-contaminated soil as compost Maturity after exterminating contaminants and E. coli by applying composting.

• Korean Journal of Environmental Agriculture
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.268-273
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• 2015

BACKGROUND: Petroleum-contaminated soil from leaking above- and underground storage tanks and spillage during transport of petroleum products is widespread environmental problem in recent years. Application of compost may be the most promising, cost-effective, and eco-friendly technology for soil bioremediation because of its advantages over physical and chemical technology. The objective of this study was to evaluate effect of compost application on degradation of total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) in petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil.METHOD AND RESULTS: An arable soil was artificially contaminated by diesel, and compost was applied at the different rate of 0, 10, 30, and 50 Mg/ha. Concentration of TPH in the soil decreased as application rate of compost increased. Degradation efficiency was highest at compost 30 Mg/ha; however, it slightly decreased with compost 50 Mg/ha. Kinetic modeling was performed to estimate the rates of chemical reaction. The correlation coefficient (R2) values for the linear plots using the second-order model were higher than those using the first-oder model. Compost 30 and 50 Mg/ha had the fastest TPH degradation rate in the second-order model. Change of microbial population in soil with compost application was similar to that of TPH. Microbial population in the soil increased as application rate of compost increased. Increasing microbial population in the contaminated soil corresponded to decreased in TPH concentration.CONCLUSION: Conclusively, compost application for soil bioremediation could be an effective response to petroleum hydrocarbon-contaminated soil. The increase in microbial population with compost suggested that compost application at an optimum rate might enhance degradation of TPH in soil.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.10 no.4
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• pp.45-53
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• 2005

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of changes in soil temperature on biodegradation rate of diesel compounds from a field pilot test using hot air injection process. Total remediation time was estimated from in-situ biodegradation rate and temperature for optimum biodegradation. All tests were conducted by measuring in-situ respiration rates every about 10 days on highly contaminated area where an accidental diesel release occurred. The applied remediation methods were hot air injection/extraction process to volatilize and extract diesel compounds followed by a bioremediation process to degrade residual diesels in soils. Oxygen consumption rate varied from 2.2 to 46.3%/day in the range of 26 to $60^{\circ}C$, and maximum $O_2$ consumption rate was observed at $32.0^{\circ}C$. Zero-order biodegradation rate estimated on the basis of oxygen consumption rates varied from 6.5 to 21.3 mg/kg-day, and the maximum biodegradation rate was observed at $32^{\circ}C$ as well. In other temperature range, the values were in the decreasing trend. The first-order kinetic constants (k) estimated from in-situ respiration rates measured periodically were 0.0027, 0.0013, and $0.0006d^{-1}$ at 32.8, 41.1, and $52.7^{\circ}C$, respectively. The estimated remediation time was from 2 to 9 years, provided that final TPH concentration in soils was set to 870 mg/kg.