Soil melting cleans contaminated land
12 Jun 2000
AMEC has acquired a licence for a technique for removing hazardous materials from contaminated land. Originally developed for destroying chemical weapons, the technology is likely to be used for sites containing radioactive materials, hazardous chemicals, heavy metals and mixed wastes.
Known as GeoMelt, the technology uses carbon electrodes to deliver high electric currents into the soil, heating it to temperatures around 2000 degrees C. The heat destroys or removes many contaminants; the remainder become locked within glassy, rock-like mass resulting from the heat treatment. This is `non-hazardous and unsurpassed in leach resistance and durability,' claims AMEC. The melted masses can be as large as 15m in diameter and weigh up to 1000 tonnes. Originally developed in 1988 by the US Department of Energy's Battelle Memorial Institute, the technique has already been used to treat some 25000t of material.
The company has already used the technology in Australia as part of a contract to clean up the Maralinga nuclear weapons test site, working with Battelle. Subsequently, it has won a contract to treat Orica's Botany Bay facility, which is contaminated by hexachlorobenzene chemical waste.
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