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Oil-Contaminated Water Treatment

Sustainable Bioremediation of Industrial Wastewater

CL Solutions provides a special consortium of microbes for oil-contaminated water treatment.   Under various conditions, the oil removal rate was as much as 1,300 mg/L/day.  In some situations the remediation goal is simply to remove the visible sheen or separate-phase oil.  With aeration, CL Solutions microbes were able to remove the visible oil layer and reduce the TPH concentration from 29% to less than 1% in 30 days at a waste oil lagoon. For more information and other case studies click here.

A special consortium of microbes removed the visible oil layer from this wastewater.

Oil-Water Separator Discharge Improvement

Similar to waste water treatment in lagoons, Petrox is used to improve the performance of industrial and commercial oil-water separators by degrading dissolved-phase oil.  The treatment goal is to reduce the TPH concentration to below discharge limits to avoid fines, surcharges and potential discontinuation of service.  The Petrox organisms may be introduced into the collection and treatment system at any point,  but are usually added to the collection or equalization sump for longer contact time.  In most cases, the dissolved phase total petroleum hydrocarbons  (TPH) is reduced by 50% to 90% in a manner of days.

For example, at a large city municipal Petrox reduced the TPH discharge from 25.9 to 7.40 mg/L in three days.  At smaller retail oil-change centers the reduction was from 278 mg/L TPH to 14.1 mg/L TPH  in 21 days.  The biological treatment is maintained by adding a gallon of Petrox to the sump weekly.

The cost for maintaining discharge compliance at these applications is as little as $250 per month.

Dry Cleaner Bioremediation and Brownfield Redevelopment

Site Description

Dry cleaning solvent spills in a storage area lead to the contamination of soil and ground water on the property of a 50-year-old dry cleaners in the middle of a hot brownfield redevelopment.   After the contaminated soil was excavated for off site disposal to the most practical extent, residual perched ground water contamination impacted the redevelopment of the property.

The soil excavation was used as an infiltration gallery as part of a recirculating ground water recovery and treatment system.  The flushing reduced contaminant concentrations, but the levels were still far above the levels required to achieve no further action status.  CL-Out was added to the recirculating ground water and the cleanup goals were achieved in less than two years and were maintained through two years of  post treatment monitoring.

Site Characteristics

Geology and Hydrogeology

The site is on a fluvial terrace adjacent to the Ohio River.  The shallow soils are clayey silts to sit to eight feet deep.  An interbedded sandy zone that formed the first water-bearing zone was encountered from 8 to 12 feet deep.  Perched ground water occurred in the sandy zone at 12 feet below grade.

Ground Water Contamination

 The size of ground water plume that resulted from the spills was estimated to be 3,500 square feet.    The ground water contamination was mainly PCE with a maximum concentration of 11,000 ug/l prior to soil removal or ground water treatment.  The daughter compounds TCE and DCE were detected up to 17 and 12 ug/l respectively.  After three years of recirculation and flushing, the maximum PCE concentration was reduced to 2.3 ug/l and the daughter compounds were below detection limits.

Results

CL-Out bioaugmentation was implemented to supplement the flushing system.  By adding CL-Out on two occasions over two years, the contaminant concentrations were reduced to below drinking water standards.  During two years of post treatment monitoring the DCE concentrations rebounded to above the MCLs.  CL-Out bioaugmentation was implemented again and within three months the contaminant levels were below drinking water standards and remained below drinking water standards for nine months.  After post closure monitoring verified the cleanup goals would be maintained, the KDEP issued a “No Further Action” letter for the site.

The following chart shows the PCE contaminant trend in one of the key monitoring wells during the remediation and post closure monitoring.

Cost

The CL-Out cost during this remediation project was less than $10,000.

 

Chromium-Contaminated Ground Water Bioremediation

A bench-scale study demonstrated the viability of bioremediation of chromium contaminated ground water. The key factor to successful bioremediation was the selection of chromium-tolerant microbes. Actual contaminated ground water samples for the test. The ground water contained total chromium of 280 mg/L, with 270 mg/L hexavalent chromium.

The original sample was split into four bottles, with one preserved as a standard. Three split samples were treated with different blends of microbes. All three of the treated samples showed a reduction in the total dissolved chromium and nearly complete conversion from hexavalent to trivalent chromium. The average total chromium concentration in the treated samples was 160 mg/L and the hexavalent chromium concentration was 0.017 mg/L in two of the three treated samples. The sediments were not isolated for testing due to the small volume of sediment in the sample bottles.

Vials Showing Chromium Bioremediation Results

The photograph shows the untreated chromium-contaminated water on the left. The three bottles to the right were treated with various microbial blends.