Impacts of remediation of halogenated organic compounds in soils and sediments

Abstract

Halogenated hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) have been used in various industrial applications and are present in many commercial products. Due to their emissions during manufacturing and discharges as wastes, halogenated HOCs such as polychlorinated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers are ubiquitously found in the environment and create contaminated sites. To remove the contamination from these sites, various remediation techniques have been useful. The purpose of this chapter is to investigate the impacts of traditional and emerging remediation techniques on ecosystem. One of the traditional remediation techniques is dredging and the mostly studied emerging remediation techniques are bioaugmentation and biostimulation. The efficiency of these techniques is also evaluated regarding reduction in contaminant mass. Overall, this chapter presents the efficiency and possible impacts of dredging, bioaugmentation and biostimulation of soils and sediments, and the implications include the evaluation of most feasible remediation techniques by using life cycle assessment.