Application of environmental risk analysis at contaminated sites.

Contaminated sites represent a challenge for all European Countries. Clean-up strategies currently focus on a risk-based approach for the definition of remediation goals. Many of the technical standards developed for the application of risk assessment at contaminated sites do not take into account the risk posed to human health by sediment contamination in a common framework.

Environmental quality of primary paper sludge.

The reuse and recycling of waste paper sludge is increasing rapidly as far as the economical and positive environmental benefits are realised. In this study, primary sludge coming from a large production plant, located in the centre of Italy, was collected and the environmental quality of the sludge was assessed through geotechnical, physical and chemical analysis and leaching tests, as required by the Italian regulation on solid waste recovery. The results suggest that primary sludge from paper industry do not represent a major threat for the environment in regard to the heavy metal content.

Application of H2O2 lifetime as an indicator of TCE Fenton-like oxidation in soils.

Hydrogen peroxide decomposition and trichloroethylene (TCE) oxidation kinetics were studied through batch slurry experiments, performed on two TCE contaminated soils (a sandy soil and a clay soil), characterized by different texture and organic fraction; besides, experiments were also performed on sandy soil columns, in order to more closely reproduce the typical conditions of an in situ treatment. The results of the batch tests indicated that hydrogen peroxide lifetime was correlated to the oxidation efficiency; namely, complete TCE oxidation was achieved only for the conditions characterized by longer hydrogen peroxide lifetime, that was obtained by addition of a proper stabilizer (KH(2)PO(4)). The soil properties were also observed to influence both hydrogen peroxide decomposition and TCE oxidation kinetics, probably as a consequence of the different TOC content.

Hydrogen peroxide lifetime as an indicator of the efficiency of 3-chlorophenol Fenton's and Fenton-like oxidation in soils.

In this work the possibility of using the hydrogen peroxide lifetime as indicator of the oxidation efficiency of Fenton's and Fenton-like processes for soil treatment was explored. A reactivity scale, in terms of the oxidizing power in the different tested operating conditions (pH, iron sulfate concentration and stabilizer concentration) was built for each soil as a function of the hydrogen peroxide lifetime. Its validity was then confirmed through 3-chlorophenol Fenton's and Fenton-like slurry-phase oxidation experiments.