Laboratory Research into Permeable Reactive Barriers for Groundwater Remediation

Permeable Reactive Barriers (PRB) is a new technology for groundwater pollution remediation. Contaminants are converted into harmless by products in situ as the polluted water passes through a reactive wall. Experimental results demonstrate how reactive media can be used to remove contaminants from polluted water by laying the reactive wall across the flow direction of the water. The most comprehensively studied and applied reactive barrier type uses granulated Zero Valent Iron (ZVI) particles. In this process elemental iron provides a reducing environment which makes reductive dechlorination of chlorinated organic compounds feasible or changes redox sensitive metals, so that they are immobilized by a precipitation reaction. A reactive wall column which is made up of ZVI, sand and zeolite has shown the highest contaminant removal capacity compared to the other two which have different components. The potentials of ZVI, zeolite and Powdered Activated Carbon (PAC) to remove contaminants are due to their different physico-chemical proper-ties which make them to sorbmetal contaminants. The results of this experiment show that PRB technology is an efficient method for the treatment of leachate-contaminated groundwater.