Erace--an integrated system for treating organic-contaminated sites

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Pacific Northwest Laboratory (PNL) is developing a suite of electrical technologies for treating sites contaminated with hazardous organic compounds. These include: (1) Six-Phase Soil Heating (SPSH) to remove volatile and semi-volatile organic compounds from soils; (2) In Situ Corona (ISC) to decompose nonvolatile and bound organic contaminants in soils; (3) High-Energy Corona (HEC) to treat contaminated off-gases; and (4) Liquid Corona (LC) to treat contaminated liquids. These four technologies comprise ERACE (Electrical Remediation at Contaminated Environments), an integrated system for accomplishing site remediation with little or no secondary wastes produced that would require off-site treatment or disposal. Each ERACE technology can be employed individually as a stand-alone treatment process, or combined as a system for total site remediation. For example, an ERACE system for treating sites contaminated with volatile organics would integrate SPSH to remove the contaminants from the soil, LC to continuously treat an aqueous stream condensed out of the soil off-gas, and HEC to treat non-condensibles remaining in the off-gas, before atmospheric release