I-Corps: Electromagnetically-Induced Groundwater Remediation

Several technologies have been developed to remediate or enhance the natural remediation of soil and groundwater. Yet, any remediation technology should consider the complex interactions among several mechanisms involved in remediation such as airflow, contaminant flow, seepage, microbial activities, environmental side effects, and cost. It is important to note that most of these existing methods are destructive, costly, or have environmental side effects. For example, using direct and alternating electric currents (DC/AC) need destructive and costly electrode installation. In addition, the soil's electric resistivity increases over time in response to DC/AC, leading to electrode corrosion, efficiency loss, undesirable heating with temperatures over 100oC, and, in the case of DC usage, pH alteration, all of which can compromise the health of soil microbial communities responsible for bioremediation. This team has developed an alternative that leverages electromagnetic (EM) waves to remotely remediate or remove contaminants. The proposed technology can help industrial fields that deal with multiphase flow, e.g., soil/groundwater remediation, hydrogeology, geophysics, oil recovery, and even earthquake engineering. The technology can benefit owners of contaminated sites ? from private land owners to state / federal agencies and regulatory bodies such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Development of such nondestructive, environmentally safe, versatile, and cost effective remediation technology can have various societal impacts such as human-health improvement, economic benefits, and environmental restoration. This technology can be very cost-effective and nondestructive due to its versatility, because EM waves can be launched using phased-array antennae from above ground; EM radiation patterns can be tailored to contain or move contaminants to extraction wells, enhance airflow and enhance the oxygen delivery to aerobic microbes responsible for bioremediation, and improve contaminants? desorption from the soil matrix.