A New Technology to Decontaminate Sediments Using Ultrasound with Ozone Nano Bubbles

The Passaic River, NJ is considered as the second most polluted river in the United States, where the lower 8 miles of the river is contaminated due to the heavily industrialization from the beginning of the 20th century. Over 100 industrial facilities have been identified as potentially responsible for discharging contaminants to the river, including, but not limited to, PCDD/F, PCB mixtures, PAH compounds, DDT and other pesticides, mercury, lead and other heavy metals. The USEPA has identified the lower 8 miles as superfund site and has proposed a remediation plan including dredging, dewatering and offsite disposal of the contaminated sediments. The objective of this study is to develop an in-situ remediation method using ozone nano-bubbles and ultrasound to treat the contaminated soil. Ozone is one of the most powerful oxidizing agents. A set of laboratory scale experiments are carried out using simulated dredged sediments from the Passaic River to identify the impact of sonication time, sonication power, pH in water and temperature on oxidizing PAHs. Once the baselines are established, the feasibility to use the proposed method for heavy metals and other organic contaminants will be examined. The data extracted from the laboratory experiments will be used to develop a field application of the technology. The observations from the pilot tests will be used to optimize the field application.