The MtBE Removal Effectiveness of Air Sparging, Tested on an Intermediate Scale Laboratory Apparatus

Abstract

Among all the in situ groundwater remediation treatments designed to remove MtBE and other gasoline components, Air Sparging (AS) has been widely used since it is one of the best established, econom ical and reliable technologies for the remediation of volatile compounds dissolved in groundwater. However although AS has been successfully applied at several contaminated sites, the airflow distribution in saturated media and the interactions of various physical, chemical and microbial processes during AS operations are still not well understood. This experimental study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of AS in removing dissolved MtBE from a saturated media, performing a removal test under confined and controlled conditions in an intermediate scale tank (m 1 × 1 × 1,2). The experimental conditions focused on the study of the stripping process driven by air injection. Stripping is considered to be the most effective removal process driven by AS in the initial period of its in situ application. The study confirmed that in situ AS has significant potential for remediating groundwater contaminated by MtBE, by showing that the stripping action, driven by air injection contributes significantly to the overall removal action of the AS technology.